On June 10th, Philanthropy New York held a panel discussion to help funders consider how to strike their own balance between direct services and advocacy in a way that best matches their goals and achieves the greatest impact. We are pleased to have the session’s moderator, Ashley Blanchard, Senior Consultant at TCC Group, share her thoughts with Smart Assets.
As a strategic consultant to foundations, I work with clients to help them clarify what they want to achieve, and how they plan to achieve it. Among the strategies we typically discuss are advocacy and direct services. To some clients, the idea of advocacy is unappealing—it connotes protests and raises IRS concerns. For others, direct services seem too “simple,” merely plugging a hole when the core of the social problem remains unchanged. All too often, these strategies are seen to represent opposing values: you either fundamentally believe in advocacy or direct services, but certainly not both.
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