2024 marks the start of a strategic planning process for The Presser Foundation. This initiative is meant to engage the Board, staff, and grantees in ensuring that the Foundation is achieving the long-held mission to provide philanthropic support for music and music education and to fund the musical arts in their many dimensions and manifestations, while striving to serve a broad and diverse community of musicians, educators, and music lovers.
The Foundation chose an external firm to lead the Board and staff through the process. It selected 8 Bridges Workshop, a consulting firm that specializes in philanthropy and has partnered with a number of private foundations and arts-based organizations in the Greater Philadelphia Area.
Prefacing the strategic plan are two critical questions, focused on grantmaking and operations that the Foundation seeks to address:
- How and who do we give to? Do we want to change anything about how we give?
- How do we operate? How do we decide on whether to implement an idea and if so, what is the implementation process?
The strategic planning process will bring the Foundation’s Board and staff together to clarify focus, collect community feedback from grantees, analyze the Foundation’s current mission to determine if it accurately depicts the Foundation’s vision and goals, and determine the Foundation’s capacity to enact those goals.
At the end of the strategic planning process, the Foundation believes that a new plan with actionable items will launch it into a new era. While the Foundation has made a number of changes in the past 10 years, especially with regards to centering equity, the Board and staff look forward to working with 8 Bridges Workshop to determine how to best continue funding the musical arts and supporting the music community.
To that end, the Foundation will continue its current grantmaking programs in their respective regular cycles and will not pause/discontinue any during the strategic planning process.
If you have any questions about the strategic planning process, please feel free to reach out to Executive Director Teresa Rodgers at trodgers@presserfoundation.org.
