The XXX Foundation

Someone recently asked me how I would design a foundation based on my experience as a social entrepreneur, capacity builder, and grantee of over a hundred foundations. It was a fun question that got me thinking.

Here is my first pass at the design of the newly-founded imaginary XXX Foundation (name shows value to be ego-less).

THE XXX FOUNDATION

We have only one issue area: progress. We fund large opportunities to radically redefine the success of an organization or advance an issue in society.

ORGANIZATIONAL ADVANCEMENT

We invest in four areas that are proven levers for significantly expanding the social and/or environmental impact of a nonprofit*:

• High-volume, repeatable volunteer functions across an organization
• Technology platforms that change the economics and scale of programs
• Advocacy programs that are built off a foundation of an existing and leading service delivery model
• Efforts to convert learning into curriculum to “train the trainer”

* Informed by Draper Richards Foundation insights.

ISSUE ADVANCEMENT

There are seemingly intractable issues in our society that require solutions that go beyond what a single nonprofit can realistically accomplish. We invest in efforts to fundamentally advance an issue in five areas:

• Policy. Efforts to shift government or corporate policy to change the rules of the game.
• Data and Insight. Research and knowledge dissemination that changes the way the field defines and/or measures success.
• Bright Spots. Research to identify proven solutions to program challenges in an issue, and then dissemination of the knowledge to build national adoption.
• Disruptive Technology. Information, product or scientific innovations that change the playing field for an issue.
• Public Awareness. Campaigns to change the perception and behavior of the pubic around an issue.

GRANT STRUCTURE

We make initial $50-100K planning grants to organizations with promising proposals. Every year we select the top 25 percent of the plans drafted for deep investment.

Our core grants are 3-5 years and range from $250K to $2 million.

We make $20 million in grants per year with program and overhead expenses below 10 percent.

STAFFING

Each of our program officers manages no more than ten planning grants and five core grants to ensure that we are a true partner with our grantees.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

We believe that transparency and knowledge sharing are critical. To this end, our grantees are asked to provide weekly blog posts on the progress and learning from their efforts via our Web site. We also publish an annual yearbook with the progress on all grantee projects and insights from across the portfolio.

We are now accepting proposals from philanthropists seeking to create the $500 million endowment to launch.

Aaron Hurst is the President & CEO at the Taproot Foundation.

Discover how Taproot Foundation actually works to support nonprofits through pro bono projects here.