My consulting practice is on hold because I dove into a new project. It is called GrantCraft, a joint venture of the European Foundation Centre and the – New York-based – Foundation Center. GrantCraft collects practical wisdom from grantmakers and philanthropist and turns it into guides, workshops, videos, and other tools to help philanthropists hone their craft. Grantcraft is not about blueprints or recipes. It explores how practitioners deal with dilemma’s and tradeoffs. It helps you organize yourself and your work and provides tools to make grant-making more strategic, and benchmark effectiveness. GrantCraft delivers these materials through its website www.grantcraft.org
When I started out as a consultant in 2008, I was ready to head where my clients were leading me. Without a detailed plan, just like Yogi Berra warned – indeed, I did end up some place else. But I very much enjoyed the trip. I definitively will not miss having proposals rejected, the umpteenth tender failure…. But it was certainly very gratifying to explore and address a variety of organizational problems with clients: from mainstreaming gender in international coöperation, to supporting good governance of a Women’s Fund in South Africa, addressing age diversity in HR policies in Dutch municipalities and measuring effectiveness in attending to victims of commercial sexual violence in Latin America. With GrantCraft I will still be working very much around learning with those who try to promote social justice. But it will no longer be in a personal, advisory capacity.
I may be blogging here but you do check the GrantCraft blog!
