Action Planner
Strategies to Steward Responsively
Responsible stewardship is a hallmark of effective grantmaking practices, contributing to public confidence and increasing grantmaking impact. Responsive stewardship, however, means identifying and managing risks rather than avoiding them. This involves anticipating and adapting to change of all kinds, sharing grantmaking information openly, using technology and data effectively, and serving as facilitators of the grantmaking process rather than guards of the assets.
Grants professionals can connect the dots among knowledge, systems, and relationships to assess and manage risk, seeking creative solutions to remove barriers to impact. Grants professionals and leaders must have serious conversations about what it means to be responsive,take risks, and understand the context in which their grantees work.
This action planner outlines three action steps funders must take to recalibrate their vetting process to make it more transparent, more trust-based, more nonprofit- and community-centered, and less burdensome. Each action step is explored in greater depth in a series of how-to guides—available exclusively to Organization and Consultant Members.
