Nonprofit Build Up® Podcast

Hayley Smith, Vice President of Strategic Impact and Principal

Listen to Part Two:

Hayley Smith has over a decade of experience working for and with nonprofit organizations. She received her B.A. from Colgate University and her J.D. from Fordham University School of Law. She is passionate about using her expertise to address systemic inequalities and effect social change.

Hayley started her career at the national headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union, first providing support to the organization’s impact litigation and legislative campaigns, and ultimately as a Policy and Advocacy Counsel for the ACLU’s nationwide state-based advocacy efforts in support of reproductive rights. Most recently, Hayley worked as a Senior Legal Associate at Foundation Source, advising the firm’s nearly 2,000 clients on all aspects of compliance with private foundation rules and regulations. She takes pride in her ability to problem solve, enabling clients to achieve their goals.

You can find Hayley chasing after her toddler, exploring the great outdoors, and planning future travels when she is not working.

Transcript for Part 1:

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:08] Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity, and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

[0:00:38] Stefanie Wong: Hi, Build Up community, we’re so glad you’re tuning in. I’m Stefanie Wong, Build Up’s Executive Portfolio Manager. Today’s episode of the Build Up Podcast is an exciting one, titled, Creating an Innovative Grant-Making Fund. In this episode, we explore the strategies behind designing a fund that maximizes impact through innovative approaches to grant making. We discuss how to overcome the challenges of limited resource allocation, why it’s crucial to strengthen your infrastructure before testing new ways of working, and how collaboration plays a key role in building effective funding models.

We’ll be joined by Hayley Smith, Vice President of Strategic Impact and Principal at the Build Up Companies, as we dive into how we can foster high-quality proposals, engage impactful partnerships, and develop meaningful metrics for success. Tune in to hear more about the brave strategies, partnerships, and evaluations that can transform the future of grant making, and make a greater impact in communities worldwide.

[EPISODE] 

[0:01:37] Nic Campbell: Hi, Hayley, and welcome to the Nonprofit Build up.

[0:01:40] Hayley Smith: Hi, Nic.

[0:01:41] Nic Campbell: Yes. I’m so excited for this conversation that you’re joining the podcast, and we get to talk about all the things that you’re doing at the Build Up Companies, and innovation and grant making. I think it’s really going to be a wonderful conversation. To get us started, I wonder if you could just talk to us a little bit about your portfolio of work at the Build Up Companies, what you do there, and then we can take it from there.

[0:02:07] Hayley Smith: Perfect. Thanks for having me. Here at Build Up, I both work directly with our clients, whether that means providing legal services, or designing and implementing infrastructure assessments. Also serve in the background as well, providing strategic guidance within the companies and for our team of staff. I think my background really has focused both on advocacy and on grant making. I tend to focus on our grant making clients and those engaged in advocacy or funding advocacy, working with fiscal sponsors, their sponsored projects, donor advice funds, donor collaboratives, family foundations, et cetera. I’m really excited to talk about innovation funds today.

[0:02:51] Nic Campbell: Nice. When you’re talking about your portfolio, the thing that sticks out to me is that it’s very broad in terms of who in the sector you’re able to engage with and interact with. I am really interested in how we are seeing innovation show up in the different organizations that you’re working with, how those conversations around innovation look and feel. To get us into that innovation in grant making conversation, how do you define innovation? What do you see about innovation when you’re hearing about innovation? What are you liking about it so far and what is giving you pause, if anything?

[0:03:31] Hayley Smith: For me, when I think about innovation, innovation is one of those words where it sounds good when you say it, but it means something completely different to every person who says it. Whenever anyone uses that word with me, I want to ask them more about what they really mean. I tend to think of innovation in our work in kind of two buckets, internal and external innovation. Though in the context of a grant-making fund, more internal innovation can just mean, come from the infrastructure and the operations of the grant fund itself. Whether an organization is thinking about new ways to publicize a grant program or reach new partner organizations, reconsidering the ways that they manage grant applications and grant selection processes. I think of those as more internal innovations.

Then, there’s the external innovation, which is related to the type of work that an organization is seeking to fund. That could be testing out new ways for solving a very long-standing problem, like how to address mental health issues for youth and what are new ways to do that. It could be something that is brand new, completely untested, or maybe it’s just something new for that particular organization.

I think, maybe your last point was, what do you like or you don’t like around what you’re seeing around innovation? I thought a lot about that prior to this conversation because I struggle. Work doesn’t have to be innovative to be good work and important work. So, I hesitate when there’s so much of a focus on innovation. I also really think that innovation is a privilege. It takes a lot of time to think about it, to come up with these brand-new ideas. People have been working on these issues forever. To come up with something that is completely brand new is hard, and that takes work, and that takes you out of the other work that you’re doing. So, I struggle with that.

[0:05:37] Nic Campbell: Now, I hear you. What you’re saying about work doesn’t have to be innovative to be good work, I think it’s just a really good call out, because sometimes you speak with organizations and funders, and that’s what is – the opposite of that is being sort of shared in those conversations, and those dialogue, that this idea that if it’s not innovative, then you’re doing something wrong. So, I do think that calling it out that good work doesn’t always have to be under this label of full innovation.

Another thing you shared made me think about, when we’re talking about innovation, the innovation has to necessarily be tailored to the organization that’s engaging in that innovation, the community that’s going to be impacted. So, innovation can’t just be this one thing to everyone. So, think about how you’re approaching the work is really critical, the impact that you’re going to have, and then putting most things together to think about, is this an innovative way to approach this problem. Even if it isn’t, it doesn’t mean that it’s not impactful, it doesn’t mean that it’s not good work. I’m really glad you calling that out.

When you’re talking about innovation being a privilege, which I think is a really intriguing statement. Why would a funder want to create an innovative grant-making fund and why support that kind of fund?

[0:07:04] Hayley Smith: I think there are a lot of funders out there that, where there are a group of grantee organizations that they know very well, and they know the work that they do very well. So, it’s almost easy to get stuck in a rut of funding those same organizations, and you build trust, and that’s a great thing. I think the desire to create an innovation fund can come in part from just wanting to explore what else is out there, to reach new organizations that you haven’t heard from, or to hear directly from communities about what they need. Also, to shake things up within the organization itself. We’ve been operating our grant making for the same way for many years. Let’s try something new. Let’s get the board engaged. Let’s reinvigorate how we think about grant making? 

[0:07:57] Nic Campbell: I like that. I like that idea of reaching out to organizations, or individuals, or leaders that you might not work with or have not worked with previously for whatever reason. So now, this creation or creating this fund is giving you the ability or opportunity to do that and start those conversations. Even if you’re talking about your existing grantees, different ways to engage with them, how to deepen the relationship as well. I like you lifting up the opportunity that can be found within an innovative grant-making fund.

I’m a funder. I want to create an innovative grant -making fund. I come up with the idea. I want to deepen my relationships with my existing grantees, or I want to reach a group that I have not been engaged with previously. What are the key steps that you see in setting up an innovation fund? What happens first?

[0:08:56] Hayley Smith: I would say, one of my key pieces of advice as you’re thinking about your timeline for building out the innovation fund is, build in more time than you think you will need. Because you’re testing out something new, and that requires some change management within your organization. You need to have conversations to bring people along, and that takes time. I think a lot of the time is well spent up front having those conversations about what does innovation mean for your organization. I said earlier, it means something different for every person. Even within your organization, people may have different ideas about what innovation means, and getting really clear about that up front is helpful.

Then, a lot of the steps are the same that you would take with any other grant fund. You’re thinking about your eligibility criteria, and that’s where your definition of innovation is going to be very helpful. Because you could take a very broad approach and you could say, “I want to hear from grantees about what they think is innovative,” but then you may end up receiving a lot of applications that aren’t really what you’re looking for, and nobody wants to waste a grantee’s time submitting an application if that wasn’t the type of work you were seeking to fund. Thinking about your definition of innovation, being very clear about that in your eligibility criteria will get you the applications that you’re looking for.

Then, I think with an innovation fund, thinking about your selection process is also critical. Who’s going to be involved in that selection committee in reviewing applications? What does the process look like? Maybe you’re bringing in some community members to help review applications. Maybe there are multiple rounds of review, then it’s going to some of the staff at the foundation. Maybe the board is involved. What are the criteria that each group is using to weigh the applications? All things that you should be thinking about as you set up the fund/

[0:10:59] Nic Campbell: When you’re talking these things through, which all make really good sense. I think, each of them, if you don’t spend time planning them out, it will create confusion. It’ll kind of detract from what you’re trying to do and the impact you’re trying to have. So, I agree with all of those steps as being key, very critical in this process. When you’re talking, the word that kept coming to mind for me that I want to make sure that we talk about is risk. Because when you said, and it’s true, within an organization, the same organization, you may define innovation differently. I think that’s also true, very true for risk.

I want to talk a bit about that relationship between risk and innovation, and how are you approaching this idea of risk, risk management, risk tolerance within the organization as you’re building out and creating this innovative grant-making fund.

[0:11:54] Hayley Smith: I think the concept of risk comes up in every phase of an innovation grant-making fund. Earlier, we talked about how an innovation fund can be a really great way to meet new organizations that you have not provided funding to in the past. So, there is potential risk there. We don’t know them. How are we starting the conversation with these grantees in a way that’s not overly burdensome to them? We want to get to know them, but we don’t want to make the process completely burdensome.

Are we testing out new types of grantees where some people might think there’s additional risk there. Maybe we’re making grants to for-profits that are doing really innovative work. So, just thinking about new types of organizations and how do we manage potential risk, ensuring that they are using the grant funds for the purpose that we have this innovation fund.

I think risk for me, though, also especially comes into play when we think about, how are we measuring grantee success. Because if you’re going to have an innovation fund, you need to get comfortable with the fact that we’re testing out new ideas here. Some of them may fail and that’s okay. That is critical to actually a successful innovation fund.

[0:13:17] Nic Campbell: I’m thinking this through, because everything you’re sharing is resonating with me. It’s making me think about, you’re going – you’re stepping into new relationships. You’re likely stepping into new communities, or engaging a little bit differently than you had before. We talked about change management at the beginning. I want to hear about, how do you work with an organizational partner, with an organization to take them along that journey of essentially changing the way that they have been working today. Even if it’s just for this fund, but they have to sometimes change the way they’re approaching the work. Like you said, you might have to change the way you’re evaluating the grant making that you are doing because, maybe previously, you said it has to have A, B, and C when we’re done.

Now, you have to be comfortable with we’re just going in to fund this thing, and it might actually not achieve any of those things. Even though it has not achieved those things, it still is a whole good investment. That might take some shifts in thinking and approach. I would love to hear how you go about partnering with organizations that have to go into that journey. How do you set them up for success and to really able to engage well with this kind of fund?

[0:14:39] Hayley Smith: I think for me, maybe even reframing the innovation fund to the trust fund, or not the typical type of trust fund that we think of it is useful, because you need to have trust in order to do this well. That is trust in the communities that you’re serving and the grantees that are working in those communities. Also, I think the humility to accept that you as the funder don’t necessarily have all the answers, and maybe the grantee doesn’t have all the answers either. We’re in this partnership together to try to figure it out, to try to chart a better course, and that takes trust.

[0:15:19] Nic Campbell: Yes, agreed. This idea that we’re in this together and having trust be essentially the foundation is a really good call out because I know we focus a lot on having trust in the organizations. I think that that is an entire process sometimes for organizations to do that. I also think, part of what I’m hearing from you is that, we want to make sure that the organizations that we’re working with or the grantees that are ultimately selected trust the funder as well. That it’s not just like, “We trust you, and so, this is what we’re going to do.” But it’s like, “You should trust us and here’s why.” You then have to design your fund in a way that says, “It’s fine, you can trust me, and we’re learning together, and we’re doing this together.” I do think your call out about trust is real. Renaming it the trust fund, we have to market that, but I completely agree.

[0:16:20] Hayley Smith: When you were talking, I was just thinking that it takes some bravery for an organization to submit an innovation grant application, because you as the grantee likely recognize this may not work out according to plan. I’m testing out something new, I can’t really guarantee how it will go. So, to your point, you really do want to make sure that you have trust in that funder that they’re not going to then say, “Well we’re pulling your funding halfway through because you didn’t meet exactly whatever data points we thought you were going to. Things went in a different direction.” That should be expected within an innovation fund and both parties need to understand that.

[0:17:04] Nic Campbell: Agreed. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:17:05] Stefanie Wong: Thank you for tuning in to our conversation title, Creating an Innovative Grant-Making Fund on the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. If you’re interested in learning more about the Build Up Companies, please visit www.buildupcompanies.com. 

[0:17:23] Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupadvisory.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.

Transcript for Part 2:

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:08] Nic Campbell: You’re listening to the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. I’m your host, Nic Campbell. I want to support movements that can interrupt cycles of injustice and inequity, and shift power towards vulnerable and marginalized communities. I’ve spent years working in and with nonprofits and philanthropies and I know how important infrastructure is to outcomes. On this show, we’ll talk about how to build capacity to transform the way you and your organization work.

[0:00:38] Stefanie Wong: Hi, Build Up community, we’re so glad you’re tuning in. I’m Stefanie Wong, Build Up’s Executive Portfolio Manager. Today’s episode of the Build Up Podcast is an exciting one, titled, Creating an Innovative Grant-Making Fund. In this episode, we explore the strategies behind designing a fund that maximizes impact through innovative approaches to grant-making. We discuss how to overcome the challenges of limited resource allocation, why it’s crucial to strengthen your infrastructure before testing new ways of working, and how collaboration plays a key role in building effective funding models.

We’ll be joined by Hayley Smith, Vice President of Strategic Impact and Principal at the Build Up Companies, as we dive into how we can foster high-quality proposals, engage impactful partnerships, and develop meaningful metrics for success. Tune in to hear more about the brave strategies, partnerships, and evaluations that can transform the future of grant making, and make a greater impact in communities worldwide.

[EPISODE] 

[0:01:37] Nic Campbell: How do you ensure that the communities that the fund is trying to impact or engage with are involved in the process?

[0:01:49] Hayley Smith: I think there are a lot of different ways that they can be involved at every step of the way. Starting from the very beginning when you’re defining what is innovation, it’s helpful to hear from the community about what they need, what has been tried already and tested in that community, what they think hasn’t been tried, but could be helpful.

So, bringing in their voices there and recognizing that expertise doesn’t just come from people who are doing this work at a professional capacity, but could be lived experience. Someone who’s in the community, right? If you’re trying to address gun violence, then hearing from community members in schools or elsewhere that have been impacted by gun violence or have family members who have been impacted.

I think also bringing in those voices at the time that you are putting together your application could be helpful, right? Thinking about what are the types of questions that we want to be asking that could help us later on assess the application and the quality of the application and whether it should receive funding. Then, even potentially coming into review the applications themselves. I say all this with the caveat that it’s great to bring in this expertise and hear from the voices of people who are directly impacted by the work you’re doing, but you also need to recognize that there’s value. They’re bringing value to the table and should be compensated for the support that they’re providing in building out your innovation fund.

[0:03:26] Nic Campbell: I have two questions following that. The first is around like determining priority areas or themes for the innovation fund and just stemming from talking about community involvement and making sure that the folks that are most impacted are also the critical part of this conversation and creation of the fund. How do you or is that part of how the fund can determine its priority areas or themes for funding as well? Are there additional ways for an organization to think about, okay, these are the areas that we want this particular innovation fund to focus on?

[0:04:03] Hayley Smith: I think that’s the beauty of an innovation fund because you can innovate in every single way, including the areas that you are prioritizing for the work, right? So, maybe historically, your foundation has focused on certain key areas, whether it’s mental health or it’s gun violence or it’s schools, whatever it is. Maybe you want to test out, oh, maybe we’re interested in funding this new sub-area. This could be a good way to start to get your feet wet in an issue area or body of work that you haven’t historically funded. But again, recognizing that if we’re thinking about going into a new area, let’s hear directly from the communities because they know what’s needed, and maybe this is outside my historical scope of expertise and I really just want to learn more.

[0:04:57] Nic Campbell: So, you’ve been giving yourself the flexibility and space to be innovative even in terms of what the fund itself will focus on, it just doesn’t have to be an offshoot of the work that you’re already doing, but it’s an opportunity to be innovative, even in that aspect as well.

Okay, and then the second question I had from what you were sharing, we talked about the review process and just compensating folks based on their lived experience, in addition to whatever other experience individuals that are part of that review process might be bringing. What does a good review process look like? What does a more challenging review process look like? And what are the things that we’re keeping at the forefront to ensure that it’s, at the end of the day, a good review process?

[0:05:47] Hayley Smith: I think particularly if you’re talking about bringing in community members or others to help your organization review applications, you need to think about what types of conversations are you having with those folks or trainings? Are you providing to those folks to make sure that to the extent they can, they’re taking out any type of unconscious bias in their review of applications, that if you have multiple people scoring different applications, how are we going to ensure consistency across all of those different people so that every applicant gets a fair review? And are there ways for the different reviewers to communicate amongst each other, right?

Sometimes maybe they want to bounce ideas off of each other, but how can we create an experience for these people as they’re coming in? And how can we – again, it goes back to trust, right? If we’re bringing in others to help us review applications, how are we building trust with those people? Because I think, again, like you said, that goes back to risk as well, and how to mitigate risk is to build trust.

[0:07:01] Nic Campbell: So, these elements all sound really critical to having like a good innovation fund at the end of the day. What it’s making me think about is the timeline, right? Because we’re talking about planning and then we’ve got to get folks together and we’ve got to include the folks in the community in a good way. And then there’s, you’ve got to be thoughtful in the review process. We’re also thinking about the organization itself and the change management that’s happening there. So, I would love to hear they just walk us through how long on average.

Again, I’m a funder. I’m trying to set up one of these innovation funds. What should I be looking at in terms of timeline? Should I be playing this out four years in advance? When can I get started and how long does each part of this process take on average?

[0:07:51] Hayley Smith: As you were talking I was struggling with this because you’re right. It takes time, I’d say a year, a year and a half, and I struggle with this because we want to move money quickly to the places where it’s needed most. We’re talking about this long learning journey. That means from the time you start the journey until the time the funds are going out the door, a lot of time has passed. So, I struggle with that, with finding the right balance.

I think maybe that also just gets a little bit easier over time, right? If you’re building out your very first innovation fund, it’s going to take a lot of time. But if you then do an innovation fund 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, the change management internally gets a lot easier, right? People are used to it now. And you’ve also built out your own infrastructure. You know how to do it. It runs more efficiently, smoothly, and so it can move faster.

[0:08:56] Nic Campbell: What do the grants themselves look like in terms of the structure? So, we’ve gone through this process of how we set it up, the timeline around that, who’s involved. I want to talk now, I shipped a bit to the actual awards. We talked about, if you’re thinking about innovation and moving outside of this C3 as the only grant recipient, you might be dealing with all kinds of organizations that are receiving awards. So C4s, other exempt organizations, for-profits, the charitable projects. What does a typical grant award look like? And then what is the term? Are we looking at project support grants? Are we looking at general support grants? I just want to hear how we should be thinking about this grant as well.

[0:09:45] Hayley Smith: I think it depends because one way to view this is I’m setting up an innovation fund. I’m testing out some new ways of grant-making within my organization. That’s my internal innovations. Maybe I want to fund organizations that are themselves innovative. But I could do that, right? Let’s say the grantee is a public charity, I can do that through a general support grant. So, I can be assessing, looking for grantees that operate in innovative ways, but funding them through general support, and then they can use the grant funds however they need and it’s very flexible.

Alternatively, it’s possible that you really want to fund that one particular innovative grant program, so you could do that as a project support grant, and then this is particularly relevant if you’re granting to entities that are not 501(c)(3)s. So, you can make it as a project support grant.

I think a key component of this is potentially thinking about planning grants. I said at the very top of our conversation that I think innovation is a privilege. It takes a lot of time to put the thinking into innovative programming. So, to the extent that you as a funder can provide funds to support that work. I’m giving you a pool of money. Use it to come up with your innovative idea. Use this, I know you’re taking time away from your other work to come up with a grant proposal, to think about something that is new and untested. Here’s funding to support that time planning. That can be helpful.

Then, also just other ways to support grantees, right? Could be technical assistance. Maybe they need to bring in third parties to help consultants, et cetera. There might be ways to think about technical assistance in addition to the grant funds themselves.

[0:11:53] Nic Campbell: I really just love that idea of what I’m calling like a comprehensive investment in this work, in an organization, or in a grantee, because there’s the award for like let’s call it the innovation brand that goes out. But part of that brand award is like you said, the technical assistance or a capacity-building aspect of the thing. Because in order to do that innovative work or engaging that innovative work and experiment in a good way, you do need to have a good infrastructure to support all of that and the capacity to do it in a really good way.

So, bringing in that technical assistance, capacity building piece, I think is really, really smart. I’m really intrigued by the planning grant. When you’re thinking about this planning grant, who receives it? Because I could think about a couple of ways that this could play out, where you receive a planning grant if you are a finalist, right? You may not actually receive the innovation grant, let’s call it. But you need some time to build out the idea a bit more or do a little bit more work or engage with the fund a little more deeply. So, to account for that time, here’s a planning grant or award to help with that. And then I can also see just that planning grant being awarded to the actual grantees. So, I want to hear a little bit more about how you’re thinking about planning grants, how they have been used, and what possibilities exist for funders that are thinking about this kind of fund?

[0:13:24] Hayley Smith: I think it could be any and all of the above. But when I said it, originally, I was thinking of almost like a finalist pool receiving those planning grants. So, it’s also part of the funder’s selection process as well. Before I ask you, grantee, to go ahead and put together the full proposal, I’m providing you some support to basically do the work that you need to do to finalize the proposal itself. That also just helps, again, helps the funder make sure that they’re receiving the applications to fund the type of work that they ultimately want to support.

[0:14:10] Nic Campbell: Right. That makes sense. I think it can come at the right time because if you’re asking the potential grantee or a finalist to go a bit deeper, now they’re really getting vulnerable in a waiver. They’re sharing ideas with you that again, in this space of innovation, have never been done or they at least as an organization have never done and they’re experimenting and they’re sharing information that could have IP, intellectual property considerations involved.

So, I think having an agreement between both the funder and the finalist at that point that talks about confidentiality, protection of any sort of IP, and at the end of the day, reinforcing that idea that trust that you called out earlier, right? I can trust you and you can trust me to support your work and also not to disclose about all of the different ideas that you might be sharing with a funder at that stage. So, I think it really does make sense to think about planning awards even at that final stage.

[0:15:20] Hayley Smith: I agree. It’s the trust fund, Nic.

[0:15:24] Nic Campbell: That’s right. I can’t rename it. You’ve heard it here. Hayley, this has been such a good conversation. I really appreciate how you talked about innovation, how you are framing innovation, starting with this recognition that innovation can mean different things, not only to just different people, but to different people within the same organization, and to different people within the same organization working on this particular fund, right? So, having that outright conversation and relying on that foundational trust that we did talk about between the funder and the grantee, but also, within the organization, that there will be change management happening as you’re stepping into this fund, and having trust that we’re all working together towards the same goal. I think that framing and how you laid it out is just really helpful. 

I want to ask you a question that we ask all of our guests to help us to continue to build knowledge through books and people we should learn from or about to close this out. So, what book do you think we should read next? Or what artist do you think we should be paying attention to?

[0:16:39] Hayley Smith: Oh, goodness. You asked me on the wrong day because this morning before I came to work, I was at my daughter’s school reading a book for her fifth birthday and that is the only – that’s the book that’s coming to my mind. So, give me a pass on this one and I will actually put thought into it.

[0:16:58] Nic Campbell: Okay. Well, what’s the book? What did you read?

[0:17:01] Hayley Smith: When Grandma Met the Pirates.

[0:17:07] Nic Campbell: We’ll put that in the show notes as well, because I’m sure there are parents out there who are doing the same and would love to have a recommendation. So, we’ll put that in the show notes and we’ll also follow up with you, Haley, about your recommendation and we’ll put that information in the show notes as well so that people can have access to it. Again, I really appreciate the time that you spent during this conversation. Haley, I think your responses have really been insightful and powerful. Again, I’m going to say the phrase that you said towards the start of our conversation, which was work doesn’t have to be innovative, to be good, or impactful. It doesn’t have to be –

So, innovation is a privilege and we want to think about how we nurture that and support it. But we’re not just innovating to innovate. We are ultimately – our goal is to be impactful. So, that’s really at the center of everything we do and The Innovation Fund is just another tool to get us to that impact. So, I just really appreciate your time and your insights, and I think that the folks listening to our conversation and to what you have shared will be able to go back to their organizations and help build out their organizations great. So, thank you so much again.

[0:18:23] Hayley Smith: Thank you, Nic.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:18:24] Stefanie Wong: Thank you for tuning in to our conversation title, Creating an Innovative Grant-Making Fund on the Nonprofit Build Up Podcast. If you’re interested in learning more about the Build Up Companies, please visit www.buildupcompanies.com. 

[0:18:42] Nic Campbell: Thank you for listening to this episode of Nonprofit Build Up. To access the show notes, additional resources, and information on how you can work with us, please visit our website at buildupadvisory.com. We invite you to listen again next week as we share another episode about scaling impact by building infrastructure and capacity in the nonprofit sector. Keep building bravely.

[END]