THE FOCUS FACTOR: A SMARTER WAY TO GIVE
By Stephanie M. Diamond, Director of Strategic Philanthropy at BBR Partners
June 2026
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For many of our donors and families, philanthropy is both deeply personal and increasingly complex. Giving spans multiple causes, vehicles (donor-advised funds, private foundations, trusts, LLCs), and a steady stream of requests from institutions, peers, and community networks. Without a clear plan, we often see donors feel overwhelmed as ad hoc gifts accumulate, time is spread thin, and they are unable to evaluate impact or articulate priorities across generations.
We have found that this stress may be alleviated when we help clients shift from reactive giving to an intentional and focused philanthropic plan with defined priorities. With a proactive plan, they can more effectively research and align with the organizations they choose to support, deploy philanthropic capital more intentionally and consistently, and still preserve flexibility to address urgent needs as they arise.
Our philanthropic guidance is a flexible framework, not a formula. We build plans to fit where clients are today and evolve over time —whether they are early in the process or utilizing complex philanthropic strategies. Every journey looks different; we start where clients are, clarify priorities, and tailor a process that helps them fulfill their goals and achieve the impact they desire.
The Portfolio View: Four Pillars of Giving
To bring clarity and intentionality, we help clients organize giving into a small set of clearly defined pillars.
- Strategic Focus Areas – Causes where donors want to make lasting, measurable progress. Many donors begin by choosing up to three focus areas to concentrate time and resources and stay consistent to achieve the desired impact.
- Affiliations – Commitments to institutions and communities that donors are closely connected to, e.g., alma maters, faith-based organizations, boards, or long-standing community organizations. These gifts can be meaningful even when they sit outside primary priority areas.
- Social Giving – Gifts driven by requests from friends, colleagues, or community networks. For many donors, this remains a steady and important part of giving. Creating a defined percentage of the overall budget can provide useful boundaries.
- Crisis Response – Grants that address the immediate and longer-term needs of communities affected by disasters or societal crises. Establishing a dedicated allocation and reviewing it annually helps donors respond thoughtfully without disrupting longer-term commitments.
Patterns Tell a Story
As clients define their pillars—even if they have not yet articulated an overall focus—their past grantmaking and outstanding pledges often reveal clear signals about what they care about most. Reviewing their multiyear giving patterns, typical grant sizes, and long-standing commitments helps them get organized and see where their interests have deepened over time.
Pillars serve a similar role as a high-level asset allocation within an investment portfolio. Assigning specific percentage targets to each pillar helps clients intentionally distribute philanthropic resources across a few clear categories and make the necessary tradeoffs that reflect their priorities. We have found that using these targets to calculate an annual giving budget helps clients align philanthropic goals with financial resources and fund their desired causes.
Narrowing Focus Areas
Although creating broad categories is an important start to defining priorities, we have found that clients have greater philanthropic satisfaction as they create clarity within their Strategic Focus Area pillar, further defining the issues they care about most. Figure 1 offers examples of philanthropic issues we have seen clients choose to support. Some clients already know what they want to address; in those cases, a useful exercise involves going deeper into the problem they are looking to solve, the population, and the geography. Others—especially those newer to philanthropy—may prefer a clean-slate approach to identifying the problems they want to address. Either way, specificity helps prioritize across many issues, brings greater discipline to how they allocate their resources, and helps enable the needed commitment to address the systemic challenges in our society.
Reflecting Personal Values
We also find that clients can further clarify their giving goals by uncovering the why behind the what. Defining why emerges from a client’s reflection on the values that have shaped their giving—their lived experiences, family history, and how they see the world. Providing sample language as outlined in Figure 2 helps guide a thoughtful and lively conversation in which clients discuss their experiences and goals and articulate their own set of values. Clear values serve as an important foundation required for consistent and fulfilled giving.
Clarifying values also informs families’ thinking across generations. Facilitating a family values conversation creates shared language around priorities and helps establish decision-making processes that allow children or grandchildren to engage in philanthropy in a structured, intentional way over time.
Figure 1: Sample philanthropic issue areas donors may choose to support.
Figure 2: Sample set of values to help donors identify and articulate their “why.”
Developing a Strategic Focus for Mission Alignment
With the “what” and “why” in mind, clients can more easily create thoughtful Strategic Focus Areas that address the outcomes they want to achieve and effectively align their goals with the mission of a nonprofit.
For example, a client focused on the values of access and family identified a desire to support maternal health. Through further discussion, her interest was refined to focus on perinatal screening visits in remote areas of her hometown. She efficiently identified and partnered with a clinic in need of funding to hire additional staff. Involving her own family was important to her and the alignment between her goals and outcomes provided clarity and confidence in sharing this work with her daughters, whom she invited into our conversations.
With another client, we learned that his commitment to global community service grew out of his travels after college. He described the ongoing challenges faced by communities in Africa that lack access to clean water. Guided by values of opportunity, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, he wanted to support a small group of community leaders who had shown the ability to build a developing organization into an effective provider of water for both human consumption and agriculture. Given the complexity of grantmaking in this part of West Africa, we connected the client with an intermediary experienced in international philanthropy helping him use his philanthropic resources effectively to support a sustainable, long-term water system in the community.
Moving Forward
The framework and guidance outlined here provide a foundation for strategic giving. However, translating these concepts into a living philanthropic plan—one that evolves with a changing world, financial circumstances, and generational transitions—requires ongoing partnership and expertise.
At BBR Partners, we understand that philanthropy is deeply intertwined with a client’s broader wealth strategy, and we actively integrate it into that broader planning. This includes coordinating across giving vehicles, complex assets, and the timing of decisions within broader tax, estate, and liquidity considerations.
Our collaborative approach helps families create focused, impactful giving programs that reflect their values while optimizing for both financial and philanthropic outcomes. The investment you make in this process can help you feel more integrated, connected, and fulfilled in your giving. Whether you are beginning your philanthropic journey or seeking to refine an established program, we are here to provide the dedicated guidance that lasting change requires.
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Stephanie Diamond is the Director of Strategic Philanthropy at BBR. Stephanie oversees wealth management solutions for clients, with a specialization in philanthropy, advising clients on how to achieve impact across the issues they care about most. She also oversees BBR’s firmwide Impact initiatives.
Stephanie is also featured in Unlocking Generosity: The Advisor’s Role in Inspiring Purpose and Impact by the American Endowment Foundation. Read the Report →
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