Anticipating Your Impact

Change in Your Relationships in the Community and Donor Engagement

Focusing on poverty-reduction will lead you to increase and build your relationships with a wide range of organizations and individuals in your community. Your activities, whether through granting or community leadership, or both, will most likely place you in a well-established and deep field of local agencies and advocates. You are likely to see the foundation invited to new and different types of meetings, panels, conferences etc. You may also find that others question the role of your foundation and what you bring to the table. As discussed in External Scanning in Section One, it is important to know from the beginning what others in the community are doing and how your plans and activities complement those efforts.

A strengthened poverty focus will also have an impact on the way donors view your role and strengths. This does not need to take away from the perception that your foundation has knowledge across different areas of grantmaking and provides support to charities in many different sectors. But, as you bring focus to your undesignated grantmaking and community leadership, you have an opportunity to share this learning with your donors and engage them with this important work.

Goals that could be evaluated over time in this area might include:

• Foundation is regularly invited to local forums and meetings related to poverty reduction
• Foundation's poverty-reduction work is recognized by community leaders and local media
• Foundation plays a catalytic role in bringing stakeholders together and advancing change agenda
• Donors recognize poverty reduction as an area of expertise for the foundation
• Donors respond to learning and emphasis on poverty with their donor-advised grant making
• New donors are attracted to the foundation because of focus on poverty-reduction