Philanthropic advising services

Seven Cranes Consulting helps individuals, families, foundations, and donor collaboratives translate their values and ambitions into thoughtful philanthropic investments.

We combine rigorous research and diligence with an understanding that meaningful change takes many forms and cannot always be reduced to quantifiable metrics.

our SERVICES

  • We help individuals and families articulate their philanthropic intentions and translate them into an actionable giving strategy, and manage the work required to put it into practice. Depending on your needs, we can establish priorities and giving principles, manage relationships and communications with grantees, coordinate proposals and reporting, track grants and commitments, and serve as a liaison among nonprofit partners and your other professional advisors. We can also coordinate with your legal, tax, wealth management, and banking teams to help ensure that philanthropic decisions move efficiently from intention to execution.

  • We conduct tailored research into causes, communities, geographies, and fields to help donors understand the landscape, including key issues and trends, approaches and interventions, leading organizations and experts, existing funders, funding gaps, and emerging opportunities.

  • We identify organizations, initiatives, collaborations, and other philanthropic opportunities aligned with a donor's interests and objectives, including opportunities donors may not otherwise encounter.

  • We evaluate prospective organizations and investments across leadership, governance, financial health, strategy, theory of change, organizational capacity, evidence and results, community credibility, funding need, risk, potential unintended consequences, and alignment with donor objectives. For ambitious investments, diligence also considers vision, ambition, potential for scale or broader influence, what additional capital could make possible, and the organization's ability and willingness to learn from evaluation, understand its impact, and adapt.

  • We develop right-sized frameworks for understanding progress and impact, combining quantitative and qualitative evidence appropriate to the work. We revisit the original investment thesis over time: What did we expect to happen? What happened? What did we learn? What should change as a result?

  • We help donors evaluate and structure significant philanthropic investments requiring deeper strategic and organizational diligence. This can include assessing the strength and ambition of the opportunity, organizational readiness, leadership, financial requirements, risks and assumptions, potential for scale or broader influence, milestones, learning and evaluation plans, and what becomes possible because of the proposed investment.

how we work

Every engagement is shaped your objectives, the decisions at hand, and the scope and complexity of the opportunity. Depending on the engagement, our work draws on several core advisory disciplines.

  • We begin by understanding what you want your philanthropy to accomplish: the issues and communities you care about, the change you hope to make, your appetite for risk, and the values and considerations that will guide your decisions. This creates a clear foundation for strategy and investment.

  • We translate philanthropic intentions into an actionable strategy. We help you define priorities, determine where and how you can contribute most effectively, establish decision criteria, and support deliberate choices about the role your philanthropy will play.

  • We identify organizations, initiatives, and funding opportunities that align with your objectives and have the potential to produce meaningful results. Research extends beyond the most visible organizations to surface strong leaders, promising approaches, and opportunities that may otherwise be overlooked. We assess initial fit and develop a focused set of opportunities for further consideration.

  • We conduct diligence proportionate to the size, complexity, and risk of the proposed investment. Our analysis may examine leadership and governance, financial health, strategy, organizational capacity, evidence and results, risks and assumptions, additionality, and alignment with the donor’s objectives. The result is a clear assessment of the opportunity, its strengths and vulnerabilities, and the considerations that should inform an investment decision.

  • We help you translate decisions into well-structured philanthropic investments. This may include developing grant terms and expectations, coordinating with legal and financial advisors, managing grantee communications, establishing reporting requirements, and supporting the practical work required to move an investment forward.

  • We help you understand what your philanthropy is achieving and what we are learning along the way. We establish proportionate measures of progress, synthesize information from grantees and other sources, and use those insights to inform future decisions. The emphasis is on useful learning and better judgment, rather than measurement for its own sake.

our PRINCIPLES

Donor-led, not donor-unquestioned.

Your philanthropic priorities begin with your values, interests, and ambitions. Our role is not to determine what you should care about. We provide the research, context, alternatives, and trade-offs you need to make informed decisions about how to pursue the change you want to create.

Rigorous, not reductive.

We believe thoughtful philanthropy requires a disciplined analysis and a clear understanding of what impact looks like. We consider quantitative and qualitative results, organizational performance, stakeholder experience, learning, and other indicators appropriate to the opportunity rather than applying the same measurement framework across all organizations and sectors. Our goal is to understand what is known, what remains uncertain, and what evidence would meaningfully inform a decision.

Your priorities lead, our discipline follows.

Whether you are interested in medical research, education, arts and culture, LGBTQ+ rights, direct services, or climate, we bring the same disciplined approach to understanding the opportunity. We examine the landscape, the strength of the strategy, the organizations involved, the risks and assumptions, the role philanthropy can play, and what additional capital could make possible while keeping the donor's values, interests, and ambitions at the center of the recommendation.

We value expertise in many forms.

Our research draws on academic and field research, practitioners, philanthropic leaders, subject-matter experts, and experts whose knowledge is informed by lived experience. We seek perspectives that help us understand not only what the evidence says, but also the context, complexity, and realities of the work.

Investment-minded, without importing the limitations of finance.

We apply useful investment disciplines, including diligence, portfolio thinking, risk assessment, additionality, and investment theses, while recognizing that philanthropy can accomplish things markets cannot. It can support experimentation, cultural institutions, advocacy, movements, institution-building, and transformational ideas whose ultimate impact may take years to understand.