Philanthropic Consultant

Client Profile

The family (couple) have some experience in philanthropy and working in the nonprofit sector. Their charitable giving thus far has been responsive to organizations they have had a personal or meaningful relationship. They have paused all giving over the last year as their intent is to be more strategic about their future giving. They have varied interests in serving foster youth, housing, education, their faith community, innovation and systems-change philanthropy. While some charitable experience, they recognize there are gaps in understanding how nonprofits operate effectively. It is important to them to understand the field before developing their strategy. They would like to learn by doing – by giving in a thoughtful and strategic way that will then inform their philanthropy’s vision, mission and purpose. Most of the giving has been from personal accounts or a Donor Advised Fund.  

Role of a Philanthropic Consultant

The role of the philanthropic consultant is to be a part-time expert and philanthropy mentor to the client. Sometimes the consultant will work with both the client and a member of the family office. The primary role will be to source, vet, and present due-diligence on prospective grantee partners. There may be diligence requested of past grantee partners.

The client periodically sources new nonprofits. On occasion, the client receives updates or reports from current or lapsed grantee partners. The consultant will act as synthesizer, review partner, and cut through the jargon to assess impact. Central to this position is someone available to do basic review of prospective grantees that can be flexible with meeting times (i.e., if a quarterly meeting must be cancelled by the client, the consultant can still share updates via agreed to terms and track progress until the next meeting). Additionally, the consultant will right-size the pace of work for the limited availability of the client (approximately 2-hours of face-to-face meeting time per quarter). Over time (years) the scope of work may increase.

The consultant will help create a simple grants management infrastructure including a grantmaking budget, tracking due diligence (e.g., if a report is expected, site visit etc.), strategizing on the best due-diligence for various grant sizes, developing criteria for which agencies receive multi-year grants, weaving in best-practice education as applicable (e.g., helping assess and define what impact they want to see over time), reviewing proposals and reports, and presenting findings to the client in-person or virtually. Written summaries are to be shared in advance of meeting with the client, and the consultant will complete all diligence on their own (site visits, calls, meetings, analysis, etc.).

Key to this role is keeping the systems, review cycles, and in-person meetings as simple as possible while allowing for the client to have deeper engagement with grantee partners as desired.

Responsibilities

Grant Review and Management

• Meet with the principals (and potentially members of the family office) to do an annual meeting to approve and distribute grants (likely December)
• Meet with one of the principals quarterly to discuss due diligence and provide learning
• Source and evaluate potential grantee partners
• Evaluate existing or lapsed grantee partners
• Review and analyze the financial condition, operations and programmatic outcomes of potential and existing grantees
• Conduct initial meetings, site visits and due diligence meetings with potential and existing grantees (the principals will not join site visits or calls at this time)
• Track grant payments, payment schedules
• Share grantee partner Thank You messages and synthesize reports, or annual reports to key highlights
• Eventually craft the focus areas of the giving. This may be done in partnership with UBS. This is phase 2, the priority is experimentation, learning, sourcing several new potential grantee partners.

Client Meeting / Presentations

• Meetings will be held in-person in the San Francisco Bay Area or virtually. The preferred presentation format is conversational with executive summaries of due-diligence highlights. Folders should be created for additional materials the client may peruse as available (e.g., standard annual reports).

Research and Continuing Education

• If requested, the ability to research and meet with philanthropy experts to learn about current trends and developments in the areas of interest to the client, and distill down to key point or a landscape analysis.  

Administrative Support

• Basic tracking of grant-seekers, overall grants and charitable expense budget, and managing grantee files and data.

Estimate Scope

• No more than 10-hours per month for a 6-month period. Check-in at the 3-month and 6-month milestone to assess if more or less hours are needed.

The Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have the following:

• • Comfort and deep experience working with ultra-high net worth individuals and their philanthropy
  • Excellent communication, research and analytic skills
  • Able to distill complex concepts and research into plain language
  • Approaches the role as a philanthropy mentor
  • Advanced degree preferred
  • Educational background, prior experience or significant knowledge of non-profit organizations in one or more of the fields in which the client gives is a plus
  • Familiarity with the San Francisco Bay Area philanthropy landscape
  • Ability to interact with a variety of external audiences and internal audiences (e.g., the client’s financial advisory firm)
  • Flexible, patient, reliable, good judgment and has integrity
  • Communicates clearly to the client and family office on what is needed to be able to provide structure to the semi-ad hoc nature of the work.

This is a less than part-time role to be paid at an hourly rate (therefore no benefits package). The hourly rate will be competitive, based on qualifications and experience. The target hire date is Q2, 2025 or before.

To Apply

Qualified candidates should submit the following application materials in one PDF to – [email protected]

• Resume
• A list of three references with contact information
• If invited to meet with the client, during or post meeting, share a roadmap of how you will work through the year in preparation for an annual grant review and selection meeting.