What I Do

I work with individuals and foundations (family foundations, public foundations, and private foundations) to develop a clear analysis around grantmaking strategies that maximize impact by prioritizing relationships, a willingness to take risks, and a commitment to a coherent and realistic power analysis. In particular, that means investing resources to win concrete change for and with poor communities and communities of color, and supporting organizations that are accountable to an organized base of community leaders.

I have experience developing grantmaking strategies and rubrics for national and regional programs, and developing cohorts between funders to pool resources and learn together about new methods, areas, and approaches for grantmaking. I also have issue-area expertise across the economic justice portfolio, and specifically on tax and budget matters and tenant organizing/housing justice. 

My particular focus is on movement-building organizations at the intersection of organizing, electoral politics, and issue campaigns. I believe deeply in the power of organizing, and that means that I hold organizing efforts to a rigorous analysis of their strengths and weaknesses. Directing more resources toward organizing is good; directing them toward strategic and creative organizing that is playing to win is much better.

I think the most interesting donor organizing balances an intentional process with the ability to move nimbly as need and opportunity arise, and that is willing to think boldly about supporting work beyond the normal set of groups who already receive significant and ongoing foundation resources. 

I deeply enjoy the months (and sometimes years) between writing an idea down on a napkin and turning that idea into an organization with a budget, a staff, and a clear vision for how to make change. The space between “someone should do this!” and “I’m doing this,” of course, is full of hurdles! Having built multiple projects, I feel especially confident working with people to develop an idea into an organization, and thinking about the structure, the strategy, and the fundraising plan to bring that idea to life most effectively.

I love working alongside organizational leaders living at the intersection of structure and strategy, trying to balance staff management and fundraising with campaign strategy and coalition dynamics.

My training is as an organizer and a campaigner, not as an organizational development consultant. And, when trying to sharpen an organizing strategy or a campaign plan, it is so tempting to treat the internal systems and structures of a team as secondary to the external tactics. That might seem to work for a period of time, but it never builds a successful long-term organization, and it rarely wins the short-term campaign.

I believe that a good process is what facilitates the strongest and most strategic outcomes, and that running a clear and effective process is one of the most useful things I bring to organizations. This includes:

• coaching and support for directors as well as for all staff–leadership training cannot just be aimed at senior staff if we want to build organizations where everyone, every day, is finding ways to step into their own power and develop a stronger team.

• campaign planning, with an emphasis on policies that broaden opportunities for organizing a bigger base

• getting beyond the fence: if you imagine your organization as a house, and your partners, allies, funders and opponents existing in a fence that surrounds the house, I want to help think about what’s beyond the fence, because that space is much bigger than the space inside. Rather than staying confined to the foundations, people, and strategies that feel familiar, I’m always interested in opening our thinking and web of relationships to include a broader set of ideas and individuals.