Advisors Accelerator

2023

Program Overview 

The work of philanthropy advisors can be incredibly rewarding, but it can also feel isolating and counterintuitive – and the pathways into the field remain idiosyncratic and inequitable. In an increasingly complex world where many who serve as philanthropy advisors to even the most active donors receive little formal preparation, living out the full potential of the trusted advisor role requires philanthropy advisors to show up in ways that stretch them personally and professionally.

Advisors Accelerator is born from this tension between inspiration and frustration with philanthropy as a vehicle for transformative change.

As a mission driven philanthropic advising practice, we at Building Impact believe that philanthropy advisors have uniquely important potential to help donors deploy their resources in ways that bring both greater impact and greater joy to all concerned.

As Building Impact seeks to advance the field of philanthropy and social change above and beyond the service we provide to our immediate clients, we are excited to offer a new personal and professional development opportunity for philanthropy advisors called Advisors Accelerator. This program offers 20 participants an intentionally constructed learning opportunity running from March through November 2023. The program serves both established advisors who are already working with donors and emerging advisors who are interested in establishing themselves in the field. Whenever possible, we will work with the program’s sponsors and other contacts across the field to help match participants with donors seeking advising services.

Program Features and Goals

Participants are part of a cohort that is diverse by design on multiple levels – from race, identity and background to level of experience in the field. Participants gain access to an intentionally constructed set of program elements that maximizes the likelihood that they will actually take powerful action on their own journey of personal and professional growth. This includes everything from weekly skill-building sessions, one-on-one coaching, a learning portal featuring an online curriculum, peer-based mastermind meetings, and an intensive 4-day in-person seminar from June 13-16, as well as structured points of connection with the community of social entrepreneurs who are on a similar journey through the aligned Joyful Impact Accelerator program.

Throughout the course of the program, participants will develop the core skills needed to maximize their potential as a trusted advisor to UHNW individuals and families, with a particular focus on effective interpersonal communication in pursuit of complex philanthropic goals. Drawing on these improved skills, participants who are already established as advisors will build deeper, more trusting (and even more joyful!) relationships with the donors they advise. Emerging advisors will develop greater confidence and intentionality around establishing advising relationships that are authentically grounded in their own expertise and proximity.

As we’ve seen in our own advising practice over the past decade, as well as through the experience of those in last year’s pilot program, these strengthened relational and advising skills are key building blocks for participants to work more effectively and more joyfully with donors to advance equity and lasting change on complex challenges across an array of issues.

Program Content

There are  five foundational elements of the program:

Once the core curriculum is built out over the course of the program (through November 2023), we anticipate continuing to add material to the learning portal and to run an annual cohort program and in-person learning event on an ongoing basis.

Donor Matching

 
One of the goals of the program is to help match participants who have the capacity to serve additional clients with donors who are seeking advising services, and in so doing to increase the pool of philanthropic and impact investment capital that is flowing to the individuals, organizations and issues where it is most needed. In 2021, 98 new billionaires joined the Forbes list in the United States, with 50 more coming after them  in 2022. Wealth surveys by industry experts indicate there are about 110,000 households in the U.S. with a net worth of $50m or more. The great majority of these ultra high net worth individuals and families  do not have any staffing or advisory support when it comes to their philanthropy.
 
We believe that an important reason many ultra high net worth individuals remain unadvised in their philanthropy is because there is not a strong matchmaking function between them and well-vetted advisors who are available to provide bespoke services. 
 
We will source donors interested in retaining advisors through this program’s sponsors as well as other high capacity donors in our network who are regularly asked for advice from their peers about gearing up their giving. While we  can’t promise participants that we will be able to match them with new clients, we are hopeful that this effort will result in a number of matches between  new donors and members of the Advisors Accelerator program.

 

Program Impact 

For individual participants, we know that this blended approach to personal and professional growth in an individualized and community-based setting produces powerful results. The pilot cohort  that we conducted from September 2021-March 2022  had a net promoter score of 100 (meaning that every single participant would highly recommend the experience to others).  All participants also reported making significant progress on their highest priority areas for learning and growth. The pilot cohort has also decided to remain connected through a self-facilitated mastermind group. We have seen similar results across our first two social entrepreneur cohorts which also have net promoter scores of 100.

Funding Model

The cost per participant is $25,000, which includes everything except travel to the in-person gathering. Thanks to the support of individual and institutional donors who share this vision for helping advance the work of philanthropy advisors, we are able to sponsor the cost of participants who would not otherwise be able to join the group – and likewise greatly appreciate any who are in a position to pay for their own participation and/or  help sponsor others.