Philanthropy and funders
Fund the mission.
Strengthen the organisation
carrying it.
For funders, foundations and impact creators. The grant is the easy part. What happens to it depends on the organisation receiving it.
Where the impact tends to leak.
Organisations that receive funding tend to be rich in conviction and thinner on management capacity. Strategy discipline, governance and the operating model are usually the last things to attract funding, partly because they are hard to write into a grant line and harder to celebrate. They get neglected rather than refused. Impact then tends to leak at those points, often in ways that are difficult to see from the outside.
More reporting rarely closes that gap. Reports tell you what was spent and what was attempted. They tell you less about whether the organisation is built to carry what you funded. What tends to help more is a clear and shared picture of the capability behind the mission: what is already strong, what is thin, and what would need to change for the money to land. Because that picture serves the organisation as much as it serves you, it usually meets less resistance than another reporting requirement.
That is what we build. A bespoke diagnostic of what each organisation needs in order to deliver the impact you fund, followed by counsel to help them build it. They get management support that is often out of reach for them. You get an honest read on whether your funding will do what you intended.
Independence, by design
Findings both sides can use.
We hold no delivery contract and no success fee, so nothing about the finding changes what we earn. The mandate comes from you rather than from the organisation being examined, which is what allows the diagnosis to stay candid, including where it is uncomfortable for you to read. It stays advisory throughout. We diagnose, design and advise. Decisions stay with you and with the organisations you fund.
Who this serves
Three audiences inside the same mandate.
Funders
An independent answer to why a strategy underdelivers, from counsel with no delivery contract to protect.
The organisations you fund
A bespoke diagnostic of what each organisation needs to create the impact it is funded for, and counsel to build exactly that.
The wider field
Convening, shared learning and stronger connections, resourced by funders and open to organisations that could not buy them alone.
Entry point
The Impact Diagnostic.
Six to eight weeks. One organisation, portfolio or field. A clear written answer to a single question: what does this organisation need to deliver the impact it is funded for? You commission it, the organisation keeps every decision, and the answer arrives in writing.
The Diagnostic Report
Around twenty-five pages: where impact leaks, what each blockage costs, and which to remove first.
The Blockage Map
Strategy fit, governance, capability, systems and funding, rated and evidenced.
The Build Plan
Ninety days to remove the costliest blockage, sequenced and prioritised.
A leadership session
Findings presented to you and the organisation in one room, unfiltered.
How it runs
- Weeks 1 and 2. Listen. Scope agreed with you and the organisation: the impact goal, the boundary, the voices to hear.
- Weeks 3 to 5. Evidence. Interviews across every level, board to frontline, plus documents, data and finances.
- Week 6. One room. Board, management and frontline see the emerging picture together.
- Weeks 7 and 8. The answer. Report, Blockage Map and Build Plan, presented to leadership and funder.
Method: systems theory and the liquid organization approach. The core is protected, the rest adjusts.
Four ways to start
Pick the door that fits the decision you face.
- Commission a diagnostic. Six to eight weeks on one organisation, field or portfolio, with a clear written result.
- Retain standing counsel. Regular access to an outside adviser for programme leadership and the board.
- Commission a programme design. A designed intervention for a whole field, rather than a single grantee.
- Work alongside an intermediary. Where an existing partner already carries delivery, the mandate sits beside it rather than competing with it.
Four commitments
What you can hold us to.
Diagnosis first
Nothing is designed, sold or delivered before a diagnosis both sides trust. The finding is commissioned on its own, so it is never shaped by what follows it.
Candour
We say what we see, including to the person who pays.
Evidence
Conclusions built from three altitudes of the organisation, never from the board pack alone.
Transfer
Skills and tools stay with your people, and there is an agreed end date from the start.
The diagnostic stands alone. Funders who continue choose one of three follow-ons: standing counsel to leadership, a commissioned programme design, or organisation building against the Build Plan.
One conversation to agree scope. One letter to confirm it.
One conversation to agree scope, one letter to confirm it. First interviews within three weeks.
Start a conversation