Philanthropy Strategy & Impact Advisory supports foundations, family offices, and social impact funds, giving them confidence that their donations are shaping systems, not just treating symptoms. I help clients decide where to give to create the biggest impact and measure whether their giving is making a difference.
Grounded in expertise in economics and public policy, my work brings analytical and quantitative rigor to large-scale philanthropy. For more than a decade, I have conducted in-depth research and advisory work across academia, leading think tanks, and the charitable and public sectors. My work has focused on complex societal challenges including poverty and inequality, economic inclusion, reconciliation, and climate transition. This experience provides a research-backed understanding of how systems function, and how they can be changed.
​​The result is disciplined philanthropy: giving with intention, guided by evidence, and evaluated against outcomes that matter.
PHILANTHROPY STRATEGY & IMPACT ADVISORY
Philanthropy Strategy & Impact Advisory has three core pillars.
1 / Strategy Design
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Clarifying the donor’s mission and vision.
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Mapping the ecosystem of organizations, policies, and incentives shaping the problem and solutions.
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Creating a theory of change – the plan for allocating donations to shape the ecosystem and create envisioned outcomes.
2/ Performance Measurement
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Designing research-backed KPIs, calculators, and dashboards to measure complex, long-term outcomes.
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Collaborating with grantees to implement or strengthen data reporting processes and performance tracking.
3/ Ongoing Support
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Providing regular strategy reviews as conditions evolve.
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Updating measurement tools and reporting frameworks for continued alignment.
Case Study: Corporate Philanthropy Program
A large national retailer with an at-the-till donation program engaged me to design a system to measure the impact of its charitable giving. The goal was to make more informed partnership decisions and strengthen performance conversations with funded organizations through a dashboard that balanced simplicity with analytical rigour.
We began by clarifying the retailer’s charitable mission and refining its intended outcomes. I conducted a thorough review of the program’s theory of change to ensure funded activities were logically connected to measurable impact.
Building on this foundation, I developed a custom KPI dashboard that consolidated performance metrics into a single, defensible index reflecting overall program effectiveness. Grounded in relevant academic literature and robust quantitative methods, the framework enables the client to track progress, identify high-performing partners, and allocate capital more strategically over time.
Case Study: Fort Calgary KPIs
The Fort Calgary Society engaged me to develop a KPI dashboard to measure its progress toward both the City of Calgary’s strategic directives and its own mission to educate the public about Calgary’s history, strengthen community cohesion, and advance reconciliation.
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We began by building a detailed logic model that mapped the organization’s activities to its intended outcomes. The underlying theory of change was rigorously substantiated through academic research and emerging evaluation frameworks focused on reconciliation and community-based programming.
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The result was a comprehensive, evidence-based suite of KPIs that translated complex and often abstract goals, particularly reconciliation and social cohesion, into measurable indicators of institutional progress.
