Strategic Advising and Consutling

Through strategic advising and consulting, we help our partners build and implement impactful initiatives that strengthen the power of proximate leaders working to drive systems change around the world.  

A group of diverse Tides staff members meeting around a table. Photo credit: Tides Seven Tides staff members sitting at a long table at the office. Photo credit: Tides A group of Arab and Black volunteers with the Georgia Muslim Voters Project. Photo credit: Georgia Muslim Voters Project, Healthy Democracy Fund grantee
A group of diverse Tides staff members meeting around a table. Photo credit: Tides Seven Tides staff members sitting at a long table at the office. Photo credit: Tides A group of Arab and Black volunteers with the Georgia Muslim Voters Project. Photo credit: Georgia Muslim Voters Project, Healthy Democracy Fund grantee

Our Approach

Our approach provides donors with a customized and collaborative path to social impact. Tides advisors work hand-in-hand with our partners to turn their visions into sustainable, justice-driven solutions. 

For donors interested in moving beyond standard grantmaking, our strategic advising and consulting services offer a springboard to create innovative strategies and programs that reach across organizations, industries, and communities to drive transformative systems change.

Strategic Advising and Consulting is for Donors Who are Ready to…

  • An activist speaking at green new deal network protest. Photo credit: Zayn-Thiam

    Shift Power to Proximate Leaders

    Tides builds bridges between funders and leaders who are working on the ground to break down systemic barriers to justice. We collaborate with our partners to devise programs that move resources, money, and power directly to communities historically denied power.  

  • A Black woman standing in the center of a multiracial circle of people at a meeting with a rainbow flag laid on the ground in the center of the circle. Photo credit: All Out, a single entity fund at Tides

    Center Community-Driven Solutions

    Communities that face systemic barriers have the knowledge to realize a just and equitable future. Tides helps our partners apply equity-centered approaches, like participatory grantmaking and co-design, to disrupt power imbalances inherent in traditional philanthropy and center the needs and expertise of proximate leaders.

  • Two volunteers high-fiving at a polling center. Photo credit: Silver State Voices, a Healthy Democracy Fund Grantee

    Collaborate to Reach Their Social Impact Goals

    Through customized social impact advising, Tides works closely with our partners to design creative and complex initiatives from the ground up. Our advisors bring together diverse perspectives and tools to strengthen grantmaking strategies, unite multiple stakeholders to pursue shared goals, and expand the capacity of our partners and their teams. 

  • A Black mother and son at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights' community hub's soccer field and playground. Photo credit: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrants Belong grantee

    Move Resources Toward Equitable Solutions

    We develop strategies that center those with lived experience, build trust, and amplify diverse perspectives to create sustainable solutions for systems change. Our approach provides partners with a platform to explore fresh ideas, new connections, and alternative ways of working — driving greater, more equitable impact led by proximate leaders and their communities.

Strategic Advising That Advances Social Justice

By working in collaboration with Tides, our partners have an opportunity to push their philanthropic initiatives further than they could on their own through: 

Grantmaking Strategies

  • Grantmaking strategy development
  • Philanthropic vision and blueprint
  • RFP design and management
  • Trust-based philanthropy and participatory grantmaking strategies

Corporate Social Impact Strategies

  • Corporate social impact strategy and implementation
  • Corporate and nonprofit partnerships and commercial co-ventures
  • Corporate employee engagement strategies 

Collaborative Programs and Community Engagement

  • Collective action and network-based program development and implementation
  • Pooled fund development and funder collaborative facilitation
  • Grantee and community engagement
  • Capacity building program design and management
  • Complex and multi-stakeholder program management

Why Tides?

Every effort, action, and relationship at Tides is in service of helping leaders on the ground move us all toward a just and equitable future.  

Connection

Through our strategic advising services, our partners forge new connections with a dedicated and diverse community of changemakers, sparking initiatives that directly support work led by proximate leaders. 

Equity

Our work is grounded in equity and the pursuit of justice. We understand that equitable outcomes are the result of equitable processes. That’s why our advisors center those with lived experience and challenge our partners to transform inequitable systems and trust diverse perspectives. 

Innovation

Our advisors work in deep partnership with changemakers across the social sector to develop innovative strategies and initiatives that will shift resources and power to community leaders and organizations that have been historically denied both.    

Expertise

Our expertise runs deep, spanning philanthropy, nonprofits, and key social justice issue areas. With a commitment to excellence in all we do, Tides turns our partners’ visions into a collective force for social justice. 

Community Stories

Celebrate the ingenuity and tenacity of the bold visionaries working with Tides to foster change.

  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation collaborated with Tides to strengthen its Postsecondary Success strategy focused on advancing equitable student outcomes. Discover how our partnership united organizations from across the US to improve policies and practices dedicated to building more inclusive learning environments and improving graduation rates, especially among students from underrepresented communities.

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    A Black woman and man looking at a computer together at a computer lab.

Who We Advise

Our advisors work in deep partnership with justice-minded individuals, families, foundations, and government and corporate partners to match their philanthropic and strategic priorities with social impact. While many of our consulting partners also hold grantmaking funds at Tides, this is not a requirement for engaging Tides’ strategic advising and consulting services.

A multiracial and gender-diverse group of people meeting in Google's Community Space. Photo credit: Google A Black family laughing together at the beach.
A multiracial and gender-diverse group of people meeting in Google's Community Space. Photo credit: Google A Black family laughing together at the beach.
A group of people with Native Renewables staff standing next to a solar panel in the desert. Photo credit: Native Renewables, Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund grantee A Black mother and son at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights' community hub's soccer field and playground. Photo credit: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrants Belong grantee A Latine woman and girl potting plants. Photo credit: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Frontline Justice Fund grantee
A group of people with Native Renewables staff standing next to a solar panel in the desert. Photo credit: Native Renewables, Women’s Environmental Leadership Fund grantee A Black mother and son at the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights' community hub's soccer field and playground. Photo credit: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrants Belong grantee A Latine woman and girl potting plants. Photo credit: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Frontline Justice Fund grantee

Interested in partnering with Tides?

There’s no greater force than the collective power of people united for justice. Join us to fuel lasting change.

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