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HOW WE WORK WITH FOUNDATIONS

We combine our decades of strategic and hands-on experience in business, healthcare, and philanthropy to provide foundation leaders with the information, advice, tools and support they need to invest their resources to maximize impact. Our work is especially informed by prior leadership experiences as Foundation program staff, which has given us a rich and firsthand understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by philanthropy. Although we do take on stand-alone engagements, we have enjoyed multi-year relationships with many of our Foundation clients.

Our Approach

Our pragmatic, hypothesis-driven approach blends our expertise with the specific values and goals of our clients.  We develop strategic hypotheses that account for client goals, resources, and values, which we refine through interviews, research, and quantitative and qualitative analysis. We work iteratively and flexibly.

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Although we pride ourselves on our generalist consulting background and ability to quickly leverage our existing knowledge of aging and health care into new areas, we have developed deep, non-clinical expertise in the following areas:

  • Palliative care

  • Family caregiver support

  • Advance care planning/Goals of care conversations

  • High need populations

  • Home-based medical services

  • Payer/provider partnerships

  • Racial equity in healthcare

WHAT OUR PARTNERS SAY ABOUT US

Our clients have highlighted our ability to:​

  • Collaborate with multiple partners in the ecosystem

  • Dissect complicated situations and identify actionable solutions

  • Communicate expertly and respectfully with all stakeholders from clinicians to board members

  • Balance quantitative and qualitative analysis and insights

  • Maintain an unwavering focus on centering the needs of the populations being served

TCP understands how to strategize around the complexities of the healthcare system, and most importantly, how to motivate and coordinate key players towards action that will have a lasting impact on people’s lives.

Claire Callahan, Director, Stupksi Foundation

TCP is a remarkable asset to and resource for the funding space.

Julie Boudreau, Executive Director, John and Wauna Harman Foundation

TYPICAL FOUNDATION CLIENT ENGAGEMENTS AND SUPPORTING ACTIVITIES

  • We work with Foundations to bring together their values and goals with deep information about the current and potential future state of the field to build a strategy that can have the most impact. 

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    Initial strategy and strategy refresh

    • Parameters and process management

    • Theories of change

    • Landscape and market research

    • Stakeholder and expert interviews and convenings

    Portfolio development

    • Translation of strategy into grants, budgets, and action plans

    • Program/intervention evaluation against investment criteria

    Board engagement

  • When teams have limited capacity or are moving into new fields, we act as outsourced program staff to develop and manage grant portfolios. We proactively identify foundation partners and manage grants and relationships with a collaborative, learning mindsight.

    Sourcing

    • Proactive grantee partner search based on strategy

    • RFI and RFP development, management, and evaluation

    • Participatory grantmaking

    Grant development

    • Grant co-creation with grantees including agreed goals, milestones, learning & evaluation plan, and budget

    Grant management and learning

    • Grantee check-ins to document learning, problem solve challenges, and connect grantees to resources

    • Facilitate learning and action-oriented collaboratives

  • We work closely with Foundation grantees to address challenges to quality, growth, and sustainability.

    Strategic planning

    Market research

    Business model development and refinement

    Business development and fundraising

    Learning & evaluation

    Interim ED or CEO

  • We bring a practical lens to learning and evaluation and emphasize learning to inform future strategy and increase impact.

    • Evaluating portfolio investments with an emphasis on lessons learned to inform strategy refresh and field learning

    • Foundation and portfolio level L&E plans and metrics that are indicative of impact and practical to collect and measure

    • Cross-team / cross-program learning

    • Survey development, learning interviews, and suggested changes based on insights

Strategy development and refresh

We work with Foundations to bring together their values and goals with deep information about the current and potential future state of the field to build a strategy that can have the most impact.

Grant development and management

When teams have limited capacity or are moving into new fields, we act as outsourced program staff to develop and manage grant portfolios. We proactively identify foundation partners and manage grants and relationships with a collaborative, learning mindsight.

Grantee technical assistance and capacity building

We work closely with Foundation grantees to address challenges to quality, growth, and sustainability.

Learning and evaluation

We bring a practical lens to learning and evaluation and emphasize learning to inform future strategy and increase impact.

Typical engagements with Foundations

We work with clients to determine the exact set of tools they need to maximize their impact. By leveraging our diverse skill sets—across strategy, finance, operations, human-centered design, and market research–we customize solutions that align your vision with your execution strategy.

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