Advancing Philanthropy
The Hill Group partners with foundation leaders to proactively plan for their future, evaluate community needs and expand their impact. Our team has decades of successful consulting coupled with direct philanthropic experience and field leadership. We can work with foundations of all types to analyze trends, develop strategy, evaluate and implement plans, enhance visibility, increase assets and maximize effectiveness. The Hill Group provides foundation clients the tools they need to proactively plan for the future, reach new funding goals, and define their impact.
Community Foundations
Community foundations occupy a distinctive place in the philanthropic landscape. They are at the crossroads of great wealth and great need. This unique perspective continually challenges leaders to balance the needs of donors and nonprofits, while also working to maximize their community leadership responsibilities. This requires strong board and staff alignment, a solid business model, great communications strategy and top-notch partnership and consensus building skills.
Our team combines world class, Fortune 500, consulting experience with common sense practicalities developed through decades of direct community foundation experience. We have on-site consulting experience with over 60 community foundations and experience serving on community foundation boards with assets ranging from $30 million to more than $1.5 billion. The Hill Group has successfully helped community foundations design and implement new approaches for community engagement, asset growth, and impact. Our unique approach also provides staff and boards with real-time data on community needs that empowers strong executive leadership and board governance. We can help your community foundation to:
- Understand and align grantmaking practices with evolving community needs
- Design and implement a program of values-based philanthropy
- Increase focus on individuals traditionally underrepresented in community foundation work
- Launch transformative grantmaking practices
- Train boards and staff
- Mentor CEOs
- Increase visibility and effectiveness of grantmaking, development, marketing, and donor services
- Develop and evaluate strategic plans.
Private and Family Foundations
Private and family foundations have an opportunity for transformational impact on missions and causes that are deeply and personally meaningful. Our experts have partnered with trustees and executives across generations to assess impact opportunities, refine grantmaking strategies, and measure outcomes and impact. We can help your private and family foundation to:
- Hone a grantmaking strategy that balances breadth and depth
- Engage multiple generations of family members to gain consensus on paths forward
- Define and measure desired outcomes and impacts
University and Institutionally-Related Foundations
Our depth of experience in higher education as executive officers, trustees, and advisors coupled with our expertise serving foundations positions us for maximum impact on university foundations. Our team has advised on perfecting governance and management infrastructure to improve institutional advancement and fundraising and developing and executing strategies to support the success of institutions, students, faculty, and staff. We can help your university foundation to:
- Assess and improve governance, operations, and infrastructure
- Remedy relationships between university and foundation leadership, building consensus on goals for the future and aligning strategic plans
- Identify opportunities for transformative impacts instead of transactional grantmaking
Strategy
The Hill Group helps our foundation clients navigate through today’s complex environment of meeting increased need while balancing resources. Whether your needs include embedded philanthropy, strategic planning, fund development, or help discussing a strategic merger or affiliation, The Hill Group offers a variety of strategic services to help your foundation with its needs, both immediately and long-term.
Execution
Increased demand for funding and grant opportunities has forced foundations to reconsider their organizational effectiveness. The Hill Group works with our foundation clients to ensure they have the infrastructure and technology in place to properly award and track grant dollars, engage with grantees, and engage with donors. Our implementation and integration ability has been a unique advantage in grantee success.
Measurement
The Hill Group can help you discover how your grants and investments are making a short term and long-term impact. Through our impact assessments, we can measure the impact of your foundation or its programs on individuals and the economy by quantifying the direct, indirect, and induced impacts of activities and investments.
Related Case Studies
The Forbes Funds, a Pittsburgh-based foundation commissioned The Hill Group to conduct a study of the human service delivery system in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, to determine if there were opportunities to enhance the system’s capacity.
Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation receives the most NIH funding for women’s health research and has transformed the field. Through a strategic plan focused on global impact, The Hill Group helped MWRIF to identify critical priorities and investments for the next ten years that will transform women’s health research around the world.
The Community Foundation for the Alleghenies serves four distinct and diverse counties and amassed nearly $100 million in assets over its 30-plus years. The Hill Group performed primary and secondary market research and facilitated long-term planning to amplify CFA’s growth and impact and continue to position the organization at the forefront of community leadership.
The Community Foundation of the Northern Alleghenies, serving two counties in rural Pennsylvania with nearly $20 million in assets, engaged The Hill Group to reimagine its vision for the future, build capacity, and help prepare the organization for smooth leadership transitions through a single-day, high-impact planning retreat.
The Community Foundation of Greene County set a bold vision to transform rural Greene County through growth of grantmaking. The Hill Group built a plan for asset growth that considered the foundation’s limited staff capacity while challenging it to think differently about community engagement, stewardship, and leadership for impact.
The Murrysville Parks & Recreation Foundation seeks to build a world-class parks and recreation ecosystem in the suburban community that is home to nearly 20,000 people. To do so, it recognized the need to engage residents and business owners, benchmark other ecosystems, develop strategy, and ramp-up fundraising.
Foundation for Indiana University of Pennsylvania engaged The Hill Group to facilitate its strategic planning process, helping the Foundation to improve its alignment with the University, maximize the use of its housing assets, and plan for impactful investments to support students, faculty, and staff.