Our Approach

We know that giving money away isn’t as easy as it sounds. You want your philanthropic investments to be equitable, effective and sustainable. Bottom line, you want to achieve your goals for a better world. We are here to help you do that with co-developed, simple, adaptive solutions.

Expertise

Through our Process Consulting approach, we create a plan with you that meets your unique needs and goals. Within that framework, we power our engagement with 30 years of developing expertise that includes:

Philanthropic Services for Family Foundations, Donor Advised Funds and Family Offices

Coordinating with you, your family office staff or community foundation partners, Vantage Point provides charitable giving services to complement your team’s work. Whether you want help with visioning or giving strategy, multi-generational engagement, or expressing faith and values in your philanthropy, we will work with you and your people to develop a coordinated plan that fits your needs.

Assessment of Philanthropic Structures

What is the best structure for your charitable giving — a Donor Advised Fund, family or corporate foundation, a sunset or endowed foundation, or something else entirely? Vantage Point will learn about your goals and unique situation, consult with your professional advisors when appropriate, and help you discern the best model for you and your family. We don’t manage donor assets or work with a particular fund provider; we provide unbiased recommendations for you to review with your estate, tax and financial planners.

Charitable Legacy Planning for Individuals, Couples and Families

There’s more to leaving a legacy than a well designed estate plan (although that is an essential element!). Vantage Point can help you explore what means the most to you when it comes to leaving a charitable legacy and how best to achieve your legacy. Whether it’s a scholarship program for first generation college-goers, a Donor Advised Fund your children and grandchildren can grant from, a fund to ensure families have access to quality food, resources to protect the environment, or an endowment to maintain your church’s facilities — we can help you design the right estate gift for the right charity so your legacy achieves your vision. We can partner with your professional planners directly or provide you with the recommendation to share with them.

Meaningful Multi-Generational Engagement

Philanthropy provides an incredible opportunity for families to talk about faith, values, service and wealth. Vantage Point will help you engage family members from different generations and perspectives into meaningful conversations about what matters most to you as a family, and how together, you can make a difference in the world. You can learn more about each other and grow together as a family in the process.

Strategic and Action Planning

Vantage Point believes that each partner in philanthropy has a unique and important perspective to bring to the table. We help you clarify your purpose and goals by exploring the perspectives of essential partners, starting with you and including your family, board members, staff or grantees. Once your goals are set, together, we can build a strategic roadmap to achieve them.

Gifting, Grantmaking and Scholarship Programs

As philanthropists, you want your scholarship program, giving and grantmaking to make a difference in the world. Vantage Point can help you develop a strategy that is authentic, informed and effective. We will show you how to engage with experts and partners who work in the fields you care about, and we will walk with you every step of the way so your giving achieves your goals.

Equity-Based Learning, Partnerships and Resource Alignment

Philanthropy, by its very nature, is embedded with a power imbalance. Vantage Point can walk with you to identify and welcome diverse voices that are related to the causes you want to positively affect. Committing to equity in philanthropy is an ongoing process and Vantage Point will equip you to continue your journey of building and maintaining equitable giving strategies and effective partnerships.

Foundation Board Development and Leadership Succession

Well equipped foundation leaders are essential to developing effective philanthropy. Vantage Point helps you develop your foundation board members and overall governance and succession plans, and can assist during important management transitions.

Client Philosophy

We tailor our services to meet the specific needs of our clients and walk side-by-side with you to design solutions, implement, learn and adapt. We listen carefully to your goals and priorities, and co-create plans for your unique situation. We do not offer pre-packaged solutions because we believe that every client and every project are different and deserve a simple, custom plan that you approve.

Let's Connect

How It Works

Our Process Consulting approach begins with a discovery conversation to identify your goals and the motivation behind them. We ask questions, dig deep, and ensure we are aligned on the right issues and goals. Together, we decide if Vantage Point is the right partner for you and how we can best help. We never recommend services you don’t want or need.

In our early conversations, we focus on setting you up for success by identifying who else needs to be involved, assessing current and desired alignment, and discussing practical and adaptive solutions.

As we work together, we co-develop a roadmap to help you move from where you are to where you want to be. We help you learn, adapt, and grow your leadership capacity to achieve sustainable success and continuous improvement.

Process Consulting is grounded in three core concepts*:

Listening

We ask the right questions and listen carefully to understand the challenges you face and gain clarity on your unique goals. By investing the time upfront to ask deeper questions, we will help you identify nuances in the issues you face and together, develop the customized, adaptive process that will work for you.

Helping

We work side-by-side with you to help create solutions, plan activities to implement and coach you to achieve the results you want. We expect changes along the way because we live in an ever changing world, so our approach includes iterative steps, adaptations, course corrections and pivots when needed to ensure we stay on course to achieve your goals.

Learning

We look for and name the learning throughout the process to help you build your personal and organizational capacity to sustain your solutions going forward. Our goal is to ensure you are equipped to lead, adapt and create new processes as your needs and goals evolve.

*Visit the Society for Process Consulting for more information.