Many foundations are committed to learning.

But there's often a gap between what learning is currently delivering - and what is possible.

I work with foundation learning teams and leads to build learning practices that answer the questions which actually drive the work - so learning can support better decisions and contribute to greater impact.

Foundations pour real effort into strategic planning, learning, and evaluation. And yet something often stays stuck. The strategy doesn’t shape daily decisions. Evaluation findings come back and don’t change much. Learning conversations happen, and then everyone goes back to what they were doing before.

The disconnect usually lives somewhere specific — in how learning is structured, in how (or if) it’s connected to the decisions that actually matter, and what practices are supporting the goal of learning. I’ve spent 20+ years figuring out where those disconnects happen — including eleven years leading the learning function inside a foundation. My work focuses on helping foundations build something that actually fits, and which supports the decisions they need to make.

Partnering with teams

Maybe you have an learning team that wants to evolve its practice, a strategy process that needs support, or a foundation trying to understand whether its internal changes are actually landing. This work is shaped around what your team is trying to figure out and what your organization is ready to take on.

Working with learning leads

Sometimes you need a thinking partner — someone who knows this work and can engage seriously with what you’re navigating. Working one-on-one is for learning leads who are ready to move things forward in new ways: building clarity on the function, pressure-testing thinking, and figuring out what the next step could look like.

If anything resonates with where you are, I’d like to hear what you’re working on.