More than twenty years ago I told a story at a conference on work/family policies about a personal experience that happened the year I adopted my daughter after the death of my sister. It was a very painful and poignant story, but also a powerful example of the dilemmas we face as working parents. The story was picked up by the Globe and Mail and occasionally, even after all this time, I run into someone who remembered the story, and for whom it resonated. I was reminded of that while reading this month’s Maytree Foundation’s monthly opinion newsletter which talks about the role stories play and how they can be used in effective organizational communications to promote social change. As Chair Alan Broadbent says:
“Stories do a number of important things. They can set a human context for the work we do, so that it is not simply about 1,000 exploited workers or 500 struggling farmers. A story can tell how the impact of exploitation on a woman can affect her children’s day at school, her relations with her community, her health. It can follow a farmer from sodden fields to a reluctant store buyer who doesn’t want his crop, back to the family home where the bad news permeates dinner hour and lasts until he goes back to the field the next day. Through stories we see the worker and the farmer as our neighbours, and we want to see something change to make their life better.” Continue reading ‘The power of stories’
One good thing about being a “recovering” lawyer is that it I still access the latest trends and developments in the legal field. It’s part of our commitment to T-Shaped learning and it’s why Julie and I really enjoy working together, exploring and adapting ideas and trends from across all sectors.
This month’s issue of the Canadian Bar Association’s magazine “The National” has an article on a trend I have heard little about before, how law firms are using competitive intelligence to grow their business. CI helps determine a clients’ needs by researching and analyzing data on emerging industries, prospective clients and their market environments. This helps clients, but also helps the law firm figure out where to invest its own business development efforts. It also adds a financial lens on existing and potential clients with a view to understanding “who are the ones that are keeping the lights on.” The use of CI in this context is primarily to build business.
But it got me wondering how this function relates to the foundation and corporate philanthropy work we do. A few things jumped out: Continue reading ‘Five questions on your Competitive Intelligence’
One of the first questions we explore with clients who are thinking about a new funding program is their tolerance for risk. And by that we mean not just whether they are willing to take a chance on an important issue or program with high potential that might not succeed, but what other factors might drive the decision (implicitly if not explicitly). For some, the primary risk issue will be the potential to have an impact on the issue itself and the opportunity cost of not succeeding. For others, like a recent corporate client, it was the impact on corporate reputation and brand image, understandable for a corporation that is just starting out in grantmaking in a volatile industry.
We probed a bit at the meeting, but later over coffee Sheherazade and I realized that what they needed was a simple tool they could use now and in the future to help them assess the risks of the options they were considering – a tool that was compatible with their overall corporate goals and risk strategy. We have found that without clarity on risk tolerance funders will either find themselves in hot water with a program or will, by default, be so cautious that their granting program does not make a significant impact.
The tool we developed balances risks with opportunity to avoid over-caution; and although it was developed for a particular corporation, we thought it would be of interest (hopefully of use) to others working in the field. Note that this tool is designed for issue or program selection, not for individual granting decisions. (We will be addressing grant decision tools in a future posting.)
So here it is, feel free to use it however you wish: Risk Tool
