Community Foundations

Community foundations face demanding operational constraints and expectations. FSG can help a community foundation align its organizational structure and operations with its strategy to build a financially sustainable organization.

FSG has developed customized financial modeling tools to help community foundations understand the costs and benefits of the myriad products and services they provide to their donors and communities. These tools have been used by dozens of community foundations of all sizes to better align their operations with their strategies. They also enable foundation CEOs and boards to make better informed strategic decisions by constructing 5 to 10 year projections under different "what if?" scenarios.

Beginning with a detailed financial model, FSG helps community foundations bring their organizational management systems, decision making processes, reporting, and infrastructure in synch with their strategies in economically sustainable ways. We begin by analyzing the design choices implied by the strategy. Then, we work to define the needed organization structure and processes, and compare this future vision with the status quo to uncover similarities and differences.

We create a detailed action plan to map out the steps to successful implementation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but instead a careful and collaborative process geared toward achieving excellence. Our operations and organization-related services include:

• Cost & revenue studies and financial modeling. What products and activities generate a surplus and which ones require subsidy? Are we allocating our resources in the optimum manner to achieve our mission? What are the long term financial consequences of the decisions we make today?
• Organizational alignment and governance. How should our organization be structured to support our strategy?
• Change management. How can we create and manage an orderly process to move quickly from the status quo to our new strategy and organizational structure?
• Operational benchmarking and best practices. What can we learn from other community foundations about lowering costs, increasing revenue, engaging donors, or enhancing our impact in the community?