Clarity Evolution Partners

FOR FOUNDATIONS & FUNDING NETWORKS

Before the new strategy comes the harder question of who you are becoming.

We accompany philanthropies through the identity and transformation work of aligning practice with values — and walk with the partners you fund through moments of deep transition.

Reserve a Discovery Session

OUR APPROACH WITH PHILANTHROPY

Philanthropies and funding networks increasingly commit to centering community voice and sharing power with the people they serve. Fewer have found their way from that aspiration to everyday practice.

We help funders unlearn: examining the assumptions and structures that no longer fit before building something different. Grounded in the disciplines of the learning organization — systems thinking, surfacing mental models, shared vision — we walk alongside you as insight becomes operational change, so the transformation is genuinely owned, not just adopted.

Closing that gap is not a planning problem or an evaluation problem. It is identity and transformation work — and it requires both theoretical grounding and practical know-how.

OUR SERVICES

Facilitation + Visioning

Where is your organization, and where is it called to go?

Through retreats and image-based facilitation, we help you surface and examine the inherited assumptions — about power, about your role, about how resources move — and reach a clear, shared sense of the identity you are evolving toward.

Research, Planning + Strategic Accompaniment

How do you take the next step, together?

We accompany you strategically through the change, building your internal capacity and weaving the relationships — with peers, grantees, and community — that carry transformation and let it hold after our engagement ends.

Learning + Evaluation

How do you know you’re on course?

We build learning and evaluation for real-time strategy, not backward-looking compliance: fast enough for your board, deep enough for your values, and connected directly to the decisions in front of you.

TWO WAYS OF ACCOMPANYING YOU

The same wayfinding, wherever the transformation is happening — within your own walls, or alongside the partners you fund.

Mountain ridges in morning mist

WITHIN YOUR WALLS

Walking with you

Evolving how your foundation holds power and moves money.

We accompany your trustees, executives, and program officers through the internal work of aligning practice with values: examining the funding mental models that quietly concentrate power or slow grantees down, and evolving toward a trust-based approach your board and staff genuinely share.

The result: an aligned leadership team and a repeatable internal practice for reflection and adaptation.

Sunlight on a road through a forest

ALONGSIDE YOUR GRANTEES

Walking with your partners

Accompanying grantees through moments of deep transition.

When a vital, mission-critical grantee reaches a lifecycle threshold — shifting community needs, a funding cliff, a founder’s departure — capital alone rarely resolves it. You sponsor the accompaniment, and we walk directly with that organization through the change: helping it discern its path, honor what must be carried forward, and rebuild on a footing that lasts.

The result: a more resilient organization with its own capacity to keep learning.

OUR WORK

From a place-based healthcare conversion foundation to a regional issue-focused funder, here is what accompaniment has looked like for philanthropies like yours.

HEALTHCARE CONVERSION FOUNDATION

A foundation putting its values into practice

THE THRESHOLD

A young foundation had done the deep work of naming its values in an equity framework. But its grantmaking and learning practices needed to evolve. Leaders wanted to practice trust-based philanthropy in earnest—and with rigor.

HOW WE WALKED WITH THEM

We accompanied staff and board through an honest look at their existing grantmaking strategies and designed learning experiences around the why and how of trust-based philanthropy. We also interviewed grantee partners to understand how well the foundation was meeting community needs, and what it could do differently.

WHAT CHANGED

The foundation now has a concise learning and evaluation framework of its own, helping it live into its value of learning. It has used the framework to reshape grantmaking policies and practices and is turning to a deeper question: how power dynamics and relationships shape its role in the community.

“We found in Clarity Evolution Partners a thoughtful and steady guide who shapes the work around where we are and deepens it as we are ready. Christine and Kathryn have a particular gift for drawing us toward new ways of thinking—helping us set aside familiar funder habits, see our questions more clearly, and stay true to our values and responsive to the community we serve.” — Foundation Executive Director

REGIONAL FUNDER

A funder discovering its power to convene

THE THRESHOLD

After a year spent building a visual theory of change, a foundation was ready for the next question: what did its grantee partners truly need to make the greatest impact?

HOW WE WALKED WITH THEM

We interviewed and surveyed more than 60 grantees, partners, and fellow funders about the types of support that mattered most. We turned what we heard into a practical guide, aligned with the theory of change, for staff and board decisions grounded in community voice.

WHAT CHANGED

The foundation saw a role it hadn’t fully claimed: convener. It launched a series of community convenings to strengthen relationships and catalyze trust across organizations working toward similar visions.

“Thank you for bringing new insight to our work which has helped us evolve, becoming more relevant and helpful in new and different ways.” — Foundation Executive Director
“Our collaboration with Clarity Evolution Partners has invited us into a new way of thinking and being in relationship to our work and mission. They are invaluable thought partners.”
Foundation program officer

Our clients include religious communities, faith-based nonprofits, and philanthropies.

GHR Foundation FADICA Healthy Lakewood Foundation Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota Deaconess Foundation
A compass resting on a map

BEGIN THE JOURNEY

Our work begins with a complimentary Discovery Session, so every engagement meets your organization — or your partners — where they are.

Reserve your Discovery Session

Christine Baker, PhD

440-391-8087

christine@clarityevolutionpartners.com

Kathryn Racine, MDiv

916-296-9337

kathryn@clarityevolutionpartners.com

Part of a religious community or faith-based organization? See how we accompany faith communities →