Our SOLUTIONS

Need Help?

Families often begin their philanthropic journey knowing they want to make a positive impact, but they aren’t sure how to go about it. Or, they’ve struggled with their giving for a while, and have found that giving money away can be a lot harder than they expected. Through our work, we have had the opportunity to help our clients overcome many of the challenges that families and family foundations face.

Staffing Support

We offer outsourced solutions for operating your foundation. Our experienced team of professionals can eliminate the need for you to hire staff or rent office space, which can be expensive, time-consuming, and a lot of responsibility. Let us implement the policies you set, saving you responsibility, risk, and money.

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Managing Transitions

Our team can help establish the appropriate strategies to set your family foundation up for success, whether you are a new or existing foundation. We have worked with dozens of families and their foundations to navigate the often-complicated process. We can help define purpose, establish mission, and create strategy to help your foundation achieve excellence.

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How we do it

 Based on nearly 30 years of experience, we have developed a series of tools that help families no matter what stage they are in, or what challenges they face.

LAUNCH RIGHT

Are you just getting started and want to make sure you’re on the right track?

The long-term success of a family’s giving is often determined by the actions it takes — or doesn’t take — early in the process. Just as a house must be built on a strong foundation, successful philanthropy must be built with a set of principles and goals that can help it achieve excellence. From clarifying the family’s goals to determining the appropriate charitable vehicles, Launch Right helps our clients be successful with their charitable giving, including launching or repositioning a family foundation if appropriate.

MISSION BUILDER

Is your family or foundation in transition
and struggling with purpose or direction?

Without a sense of purpose, a foundation or other charitable enterprise can go adrift. However, with a clear and effective mission in place, a foundation can enact its vision while preserving the intent of its founders. In short, a clearly defined mission serves as a beacon for those leading a foundation — now and for generations to come. Mission Builder helps foundations and their leaders explore, discover, and define values and objectives, resulting in a clear sense of purpose. This unique process avoids time-consuming retreats and focuses on consensus-building among all stakeholders.

STRATEGY BUILDER

Are you concerned about making an impact?

Families often have a clear idea of what they want to do, but at times they face obstacles in implementing their charitable vision. Effective strategy is the link between mission and impact. Strategy Builder is a systematic approach to developing a philanthropic strategy. Working with a family or a foundation’s leadership, we focus on their desired outcomes or impact. As a next step, we identify the appropriate charitable activities that are likely to achieve the outcomes, while identifying the appropriate metrics to track progress and success.

PROGRAM BUILDER

What types of programs will help achieve your goals?

In addition to financial support, families and family foundations can provide other types of support to achieve long-term philanthropic goals. These include engaging in educational, advocacy, convening, and values-based investing activities. NPA staff has worked with families and foundations of all types and sizes to design, implement, and manage dozens of grantmaking programs.  Program Builder is our process to develop successful philanthropic programs and it has been used by our clients to award more than $150 million in grants.

BACK OFFICE ADVANTAGE

Are the paperwork and other compliance
requirements of a foundation a burden?

Paperwork, recordkeeping, and other administrative duties are an important and necessary part of running a foundation, yet few families relish the prospect of performing these tasks. There is a better way — one that allows a foundation and its leaders to focus on making a positive impact, while having the peace of mind that the back office is being well-managed. Through the Back Office Advantage, we offer a full array of administrative services, from due diligence research and recordkeeping to grant processing and compliance-monitoring. This can take the headaches and hassles out of running a foundation, and can help ensure that everything is in its proper place for audits and tax returns.

PHILANTHROPY FITNESS

Could you benefit from an outside assessment of your effectiveness, efficiency, and risk profile?

Rules and regulations change, laws are updated, and operational best practices evolve. Because of the changing landscape, it’s important for foundations to review their operations, systems, and processes on a regular basis. Philanthropy Fitness involves a comprehensive, systematic review and analysis of a foundation’s operations. We work with our clients to establish the best practices of modern foundation management in order to ensure effectiveness, promote efficiency, and mitigate risk. We also help put in place systems that provide the appropriate accountability for reporting to the Board of Directors, an audit firm, or the IRS.