Lindsay Matush

Ask Your Way to Impact: Holding Up the Mirror

/ Exponent Philanthropy / 2 Comments

By Lindsay Matush, The Brown Sisters Foundation

In her previous posts on PhilanthroFiles, ASF member Lindsay Matush shared the questions for nonprofits and questions for fellow funders that informed her foundation’s pursuit of impact. Here she discusses the value of adding self-assessment to the dialogue.

The best path to impact lies at the intersection of effectiveness, capacity, and passion. As you engage in self-reflection and board dialogue, you will find that a host of possible strategies for impact emerge.

Each foundation’s unique approach to impact will represent its passion, character, leadership, capacity, and history. As we dialogue with other funders, nonprofits, and thought leaders in the field, I find it’s important to honestly self-assess—to have great conversations with our board about our unique appetite and approach.

Here are some questions to get you going.

Continue reading →

Ask Your Way to Impact: Nonprofit Dialogue

/ Exponent Philanthropy / 4 Comments

Vision-Success

By Lindsay Matush, The Brown Sisters Foundation

How can a small foundation with a limited grantmaking budget leverage its resources to make an even greater impact? In Part One of this three-part series, ASF member Lindsay Matush shared questions to ask other funders – conversation-starters she used to gather information as she sought to maximize her foundation’s impact. In this article, Part Two, she offers questions to ask nonprofit organizations. Part Three will explore the value of foundation self-assessment on the road to achieving greater impact.

When small foundation leaders meet with nonprofit organizations, it is important for us to ask great questions that get beyond the answers we can find in an annual report or theory of change. I approach nonprofit leaders not as organizations that need our resources to do their work, but as partners who are working toward the impact we both want to achieve. Continue reading →

Ask Your Way to Impact: Funder Dialogue

/ Exponent Philanthropy / 2 Comments

Lindsay MatushBy Lindsay Matush, The Brown Sisters Foundation

How can a small foundation with a limited grantmaking budget leverage its resources to make an even greater impact? In Part One of a three-part series, ASF member Lindsay Matush shares questions to ask other funders – conversation-starters she used to gather information as she sought to leverage and maximize her foundation’s impact. Part Two will address questions to ask nonprofit organizations. Part Three will explore foundation self-assessment on the road to achieving impact.

If one thing is certain about philanthropic impact, it is that the path there isn’t as direct as one might think. Rather, it’s windy and marked by accidental and deliberate successes, insightful conversations and observations, timely articles, and always really great dialogue.

This was my experience in 2009 after The Brown Sisters Foundation was endowed with minimal direction for funding criteria. In my quest to create an impactful foundation I became a student of the field, other funders, the nonprofit community, and the community at large.

I began by asking good questions to different audiences. The conversations I had were energizing, the insight phenomenal, and the relationships enduring. Continue reading →