Philanthropic Services
Agra, India; 2016; Misha Schmidt
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Are you ready to take your philanthropy to the next level, scaling giving and impact? Are you looking for external support to ensure your giving is strategic and adds up to more than the sum of its parts?
I partner with philanthropists, foundation leadership, and program leads to co-develop and refine impact strategies that align values, goals, and investment approaches with measurable outcomes.
How I Help:📍 Strategic Roadmap – Facilitated sessions with trustees and their staff (especially newly hired EDs/ Presidents/ CEOs) to set the strategic direction of giving and create critical alignment on core topics including values, giving areas, and the role(s) trustees will play moving forward. These agreements balance guidance and flexibility, enabling foundation leadership and staff to develop detailed strategies over time.
📊 Strategic Plan– A co-development process that results in a clear and actionable strategy to guide philanthropy’s impact. This process scopes the size of social problems, maps the landscape of key actors, identifies gaps and opportunities for action, and develops a Theory of Change that outlines how the philanthropy will drive and measure progress. It also facilitates fundamental agreements on budgets, staffing models, and governance structures to ensure long-term effectiveness and sustainability.
📚 Learning Sessions: To support strategy development, I curate a series of ‘learning sessions’ including research, speakers, and site visits to help trustees make smart decisions about their giving.
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Philanthropy is most effective when it is adaptive, community-informed, and continuously learning. Is your foundation maximizing learning across your partners and investments?
I partner with boards, foundation leadership, and staff to design and implement community-centered initiatives, collaborative learning spaces, and structured impact assessments that inform decision-making and deepen impact.
How I Help:
🚀 Initiative Development – I guide foundations in designing and launching innovative initiatives that are responsive to community needs. My approach centers on research, benchmarking, focus groups, stakeholder engagement, and iterative program design to refine strategies before scaling.
🤝 Collaborative Learning – Philanthropy thrives when funders and grantees learn together. I design and facilitate structured convenings—one-time or ongoing—that foster communities of practice, share insights across the ecosystem, and align funders and grantees for greater collective impact.
📊 Learning Reports – I conduct formal impact assessments and document key learnings to provide actionable insights for future funding decisions, refine strategies, and ensure investments remain adaptive and responsive to evolving community needs.
📈 Portfolio Technical Assistance – I provide focused support for grantees, emphasizing innovation and scalable impact. My approach includes refining operational models, implementing best practices, and driving strategic initiatives that amplify outcomes.
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What is the greatest and best use of your time, talent, and passion?
I work with trustees, leadership, and staff to define governance stuctures to ensure teams function effectively and build long-term capacity.
How I Help:
🏛 Governance Plan – A facilitated process that enhances board engagement, strengthens governance structures, and supports leadership succession planning. My approach helps leadership teams refine decision-making, improve board-staff alignment and accountability, and ensure long-term continuity and organizational growth.
🛠 Fractional Roles for Capacity Building – A flexible, embedded service model that strengthens team capacity without requiring full-time hires. I provide targeted coaching, leadership development, custom templates, practical tools, and hands-on guidance to foster long-term self-sufficiency and operational effectiveness.
Select Project Highlights
Governance: Benchmarking to Inform Giving as a Couple and Period of Organizational Growth
Supported the foundation during a pivotal moment of growth and maturation. While one primary had previously led philanthropic efforts, the second primary began playing a greater role in the foundation’s giving. In addition to giving jointly as a couple, the organization was maturing, bringing in seasoned staff, and aiming to increase its giving upwards of $80M per year. I supported the new leadership team in identifying and benchmarking philanthropic peers to explore different approaches to giving, strategy, and governance - particularly how decision-making processes evolved over time.
Implementation: Initiative Development for $100M to Community Regrantor
Worked with donor to facilitate $100M going to community re-grantor. This included clarifying values and vision, codifying criteria, sourcing potential partners, conducting due diligence, and case-making.(Open Impact Project)
Governance: Succession Planning
Supported a foundation with B+ philanthropic assets in its succession and governance planning. Collaborated with the primary wealth earner and G2 leadership to draft a donor letter of intent, secure commitments to scale up giving, outline a plan for integrating independent board members, and establish a timeline for transitioning decision-making authority.(Open Impact Project)
Governance: Board Development
Supported a foundation with $B+ in philanthropic assets in reviewing governance and board development best practices. Led benchmarking research and facilitated discussions to ensure leadership buy-in. Assisted foundation leadership in building consensus, developing an independent board recruitment plan, and preparing for next-generation leadership (Open Impact Project)
Initiative Development: $10M Towards Economic Opportunity and Justice
Led $10M in grantmaking to CBOs focused on serving Opportunity and ‘Overburdened’ youth, including those who were currently, or had previously been, incarcerated. Within this, we sourced and vetted organizations addressing basic needs in addition to providing opportunities for long-term economic prosperity. Grantees included several focused on justice system-affected families, community-led diversion efforts, and youth leadership councils advocating for systemic reform. (Open Impact Project)
Community of Practice for ECD
Designed and facilitated a community of practice for an international pilot of an ECD tool within a funder portfolio, engaging over 28 participants from 6 organizations across 7 countries. Core partner organizations were based in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Bolivia, Senegal, Kenya, and the US. Support included drafting a learning agenda, designing the program, conducting due diligence for grantmaking and participation, and codifying insights, tools, and templates. (Spring Impact Project)
Strategy: Strategic Roadmap For Foundation
Supported new independent CEO of family foundation to work with trustees and develop a ‘strategic roadmap.’ The tool helped to create the guardrails within which the team and organization exist and operate. This included establishing a plan to scale giving, defining foundation focus areas, and creating trustee committment to strategic philanthropy. The plan also enabled recruitment of expert staff for implementation. (Open Impact Project)
Why Me?
Bridging the Gap Between Communities, Nonprofits, and Philanthropy
With firsthand experience spanning the entire spectrum—from being a beneficiary of public assistance programs, to working on the ground in nonprofits, to advising nonprofits to scale, to overseeing multimillion-dollar grantmaking efforts— I help teams connect the dots and effectively drive meaningful change.
A Tailored, Collaborative Approach
As a relational change manager, I engage trustees, leadership, staff, and grantees to design processes, deliverables, and analyses that lead to the right solutions. Just as importantly, I ensure that all stakeholders are engaged and fully invested in the outcomes.
Data-Driven, Equity-Oriented Strategies
My approach to data collection leverages qualitative and quantitative data, recognizing how research and data can either reinforce inequities or help close disparities.
Bangladesh Tea Plantation; 2015; Misha Schmidt