Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation
Defining a Philanthropic Strategy for Sustainable Business Investment
Summary: Foresight facilitated a strategy kickoff session for the Erb Family Foundation's Sustainable Business program, delivering a brief that laid out a recommended path forward.
Services: Philanthropic strategy development, sustainable business subject matter expertise, stakeholder engagement
The Challenge
The Erb Family Foundation wanted to develop a compelling, impactful philanthropic strategy for its Sustainable Business program area; however, "sustainable business" is a broad, evolving topic with no single obvious funding approach. The Foundation brought in Foresight Collective to help define the parameters most relevant to its mission and the Metro Detroit region.
Our Approach
Foresight facilitated a three-hour, in-person kickoff working session with Erb Family Foundation staff, informed by a short pre-work survey issued in advance. The session was designed to:
Review survey feedback and discuss the key issues and questions it raised.
Surface staff ideas for possible funding strategies and foci, along with concerns about how those strategies might fail.
Examine the breadth and depth of the sustainable business sector and its related topics.
Work through a set of project variables and sustainability drivers (e.g., geographic scope, business stage, upstream vs. downstream focus, etc.) relevant to shaping a grantmaking strategy in this space.
Surface insights from the Foundation's prior grants and exploratory initiatives around sustainable business.
Building on that session, our team synthesized what we learned and proposed a five-part framework as a recommended path forward for developing the Foundation's full strategy: context setting, challenge definition and prioritization, approach identification, strategy development, and implementation and evaluation.
The Outcome
We delivered a project brief capturing the insights from the kickoff session and laying out a recommended process, timeline, and budget for developing the Foundation's Sustainable Business strategy.
The Result
With the brief in hand, Erb Family Foundation staff had a clear articulation of the opportunity in front of them, grounded in staff input, the regional landscape, and the Foundation's own history, along with a concrete recommended process, timeline, and budget to consider for moving forward. It gave the Foundation a shared internal starting point for its Sustainable Business strategy conversations, built from real staff input rather than assumption.