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Staff Training and Support
During these challenging times, donors are eager to understand how they can be most effective. They may have fewer resources, yet they remain committed to honoring real impact on the issues they care most about. The value community foundations offer their donors has never been so important.
TPI is pleased to present Deepening Donor Engagement, one and two day workshops and accompanying material that will empower community foundation staff to become a more valuable resource to donors and their families. As donors become more deeply engaged, they are more likely to increase their giving.
Staff will walk away from Deepening Donor Engagement with:
- New tools for engaging donors
- An understanding of family dynamics and facilitation skills
- The ability to create develop a family’s philanthropic plan
- Connections to a network of other community foundation staff with whom to problem solve and share issues
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Who is it for
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Objectives and outcomes
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Origins
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Trainers
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101 training
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201 training
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Supporting material
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How to host a training
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Cost
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Getting started
Staff at community foundations of all sizes who work directly with donors and their families, including staff with the following functions:
- Donor Services
- Development
- Philanthropic Services
- Marketing
- Programs
- Community Advisory Support
- Build a skill set to work with donors and their families
- Increased understanding of community foundation goals for working with donor families and learn how to align goals with donor strategies
- Develop “the business case” for working with donor families and a system for assessing the impact of this work
- Identify concerns and learn about strategies and resources to address them
- Develop a network of other community foundation staff with whom to problem solve and share issues
In 2006, 19 U.S. and Canadian community foundations, together with The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI) launched a collaborative learning and field development initiative entitled Excellence in Family Philanthropy: Community Foundations Working Group (EFP). This project was an organic outgrowth of two earlier ground-breaking meetings:
- A national summit of 21 community foundation CEOs in June 2004 in Pocantico, NY, (co-sponsored by TPI and the National Center for Family Philanthropy, with support from the Mott Foundation) which highlighted the growing importance of family philanthropy and the need for best practices, training and new resources for community foundation staff who work closely with philanthropic families; and
- The Engaging Families Workshop, TPI’s pilot training program for community foundation professionals held in November 2005 at the Columbus Foundation.
Enthusiasm for building skills and developing resources for community foundation staff who work with families was overwhelming. Attendees of the pilot asked TPI to create and coordinate a project to design a training, identify best practices, and provide the opportunity for knowledge-sharing. Today, that project has become Deepening Donor Engagement.
The one-day 101 training is designed to strengthen the skill set for community foundation staff members who work with donors and their families (defined very generally). The curriculum covers the following subjects:
- Defining your community foundation’s goals for working with families
- Identifying measures of success
- Introduction to family philanthropy
- What families need and want
- Background on family philanthropy
- Family systems and facilitation skills
- Developing a family philanthropy plan – goals for the family
- Implementing a family philanthropy plan – goals for the community foundation
- Next steps for your community foundation
The training includes time for participating community foundation staff not only to learn from the trainers but to share best practices and brainstorm approaches most appropriate to each community foundation.
The ideal format is to conduct the one-day training over the course of two days, beginning with an afternoon, followed by an evening event and finishing before lunch on day two. This format allows participants to travel to the training location and return home the following evening. In addition, it provides the time for a dinner to which the hosting community foundation can invite family donors to speak, which helps ground the training in donors’ needs. The dinner event also offers participants the opportunity to network and interact more informally with staff from other foundations.
The one to two-day 201 training goes more deeply into issues and is designed closely to meet the particular needs and experiences of the participants. Considerable “homework” is required in preparation for of this more advanced level training. We recommend the 101 Training as a pre-requisite. Depending on the needs and interests of the community foundation, subjects can include:
- “Working with Professional Advisors”
- “Pricing Strategies”
- “Collaborating with Private Foundations”
- “Activities to Engage Families”
In addition to the curriculum materials, participants can order a binder with all the materials developed during the two-year EFP Initiative. The binder includes materials on managing and marketing services for family philanthropy (some of which can be applied to donor services in general) and working with families directly. Among the materials are:
Managing and Marketing
- Components of a family philanthropy program
- A tracking tool (developed by Blueprint R&D) to evaluate the use and impact of family philanthropy services
- Case studies on different models for delivering family philanthropy-donor services
- Marketing templates
- Report on pricing models
- Working with professional advisors
Working with Families
- Information on family systems and dynamics
- Examples of activities for family philanthropy
- Case studies on family philanthropy
- Speakers and a bibliography on family philanthropy
Steps in the process
- Identify cluster of foundations in the region
- Identify key contacts at each community foundation; i.e., donor relations officer or VP
- Send out group email with preliminary information and request
- One-page description of training
- Expected outcomes
- Preliminary agenda
- Approximate cost
- Possible dates
- Request response
- Planning
- Arrange space at the community foundation (space for a group of 12–25 to meet in a half-circle plus small breakout rooms if possible)
- Identify hotel and arrange for block of rooms (include information on non-profit status)
- Identify restaurant for evening event – negotiate meal and costs
- Identify donors (and perhaps Board Chair) who will speak at dinner – extend invitations
- Send out regular emails with:
- Reminders
- Pre-work for the training
- Information on hotel (participants will book their own rooms)
- Directions to the community foundation
- Information on the evening event
- Final agenda
Costs start at $12,000 and cover training, preparation and coordination (2 trainers for a total of 5 days)
Additional costs include:
- Trainer expenses (transportation, hotel & meal costs for 2, East Coast-based trainers)
- Supporting material
- Dinner event
- Snacks for each ½ day of training (afternoon snack & breakfast the following day – make certain to include protein for breakfast)
- Issues to consider in pricing
- Set a base cost per community foundation and per participant (base cost for single participant from a community foundation, discount per person for community foundations sending more than a single participant)
- Determine cost of training and add $80 - $100 per person to cover food and other direct expenses
- To help keep costs down, consider shopping for snacks instead of using a caterer for snacks and breakfast
To discuss further details:
Jim Coutre at (617) 338-2590 x259 or jcoutre@tpi.org
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