What to consider when selecting a focus area:

• • Government policies and objectives about the issue
  • The current state of the issue in the country/ region/ area of interest
  • What is considered by experts to be “best practice” regarding the issue?
  • What are the key constraints and opportunities within the sector?
  • Who are the other funders interested in supporting the issue and what are they doing?
  • Who are the key civil society actors/ NGOs in the sector? What are they saying and doing?

Pro-active vs Reactive Donor

Proactive Grant-Making

Philanthropist will seek out the projects she wishes to support. This can be done by building on the research already undertaken, tapping into networks or making a public call for proposals. The pro-active grant-maker is usually an “interventionist” grant-maker that explicitly constructs (or co-constructs with partners) the outcomes she wishes to see as well as the path to those outcomes. So the call for proposals will set out the rationale for the programmes, the objectives it hopes to achieve, the deliverables it expects the donee/ partner organisation to meet and the criteria for being eligible to apply.

Reactive Grant-Making

Donor may also have clear strategies and eligibility criteria but she relies on organisations finding her and assessing whether they match her criteria for funding. If the philanthropist is new and just setting up, it is likely that she will be pro-active until her trust of foundation becomes better known in the circles she funds.

Most philanthropists are both, with an emphasis on one or the other