The single greatest constant in the work of grantmaking is change.  Strategies, issues, staff, leadership, and available resources all change over the life of any foundation.  Yet a central tenet of effective organizational dynamics is to ensure that everyone is “on the same page.”  The ability to ensure common knowledge and relevant skills across grantmaking staffs and teams helps move foundation strategies forward and leverages overall performance.

In addition to the challenges created by constant change, we all recognize the ongoing importance of grantmaker professional development.  All grantmakers were trained to do something else before entering the field of philanthropy.  While sending individual grantmaking staff to off-site training begins to address the problem, foundations with larger staff numbers may find this approach a slow response to the immediate implementation of its strategies or find the approach to training too general for its purposes.  Uneven staff preparation for the already complex role of grantmaking can make achieving real impact in overall foundation performance even more challenging.

The Grantmaking School created Customized Grantmaker Education to respond to the needs of individual foundations that seek to create a specific culture of grantmaker practice with appropriate knowledge and skills to meet their individual strategies and goals.  We utilize select components of our state-of the-art grantmaker education curricula, foundation-specific information, and the expertise of our highly experienced faculty to create a powerful and relevant professional development program that is second to none.  Customized Grantmaker Education removes the limitations of time, place, and standardized courses to respond directly to the individualized needs of foundation learning and skill development.

Customized Grantmaker Education is designed for individual foundations with a grantmaking staff of at least 15 professionals (including non-grantmaking staff with grantmaking support roles).  Interested foundations should contact our offices directly to speak with The Grantmaking Schools director or associate director for more information.

For more information about Customized Grantmaker Education please email jcp@gvsu.edu or call 616-331-7585.