Topic: Utilizing Data to Inform Strategy

Data has become an essential tool for community foundations seeking to deepen impact, strengthen decision-making, and align strategy with community needs. Yet many organizations are navigating how to effectively leverage their data – across systems, teams, and initiatives – to inform both day-to-day operations and long-term planning.

This peer discussion will bring together CF Insights Add-On members to explore how data can be used as a strategic asset. Participants will discuss how foundations can integrate data into their strategic planning process, what metrics matter most, and how insights are translated into action.

The conversation will highlight the role of technology systems – from donor management platforms to grants management and community data tools – and how they can be leveraged to support more informed, cohesive strategies. Attendees will have the opportunity to share challenges, lessons learned, and practical approaches to improve data quality, accessibility, and use within organizations.

This session will be conducted in a roundtable format designed to encourage peer dialogue and shared learning among participants. Come ready to share!

Speaker: Danny Freund, Director of Grant Operations and Analytics, Princeton Area Community Foundation

Members, View Recording

For over 75 years, the Council on Foundations has worked to support the nation’s community foundations, acting as a voice for them in Washington, D.C. while providing essential policy guidance and resources. Now, through the new CF Leadership Coalition, Policy and Communications Add-On, Council members have the option to receive expanded, direct support to navigate and influence public policy on top of their existing membership benefits.

Council staff will go in-depth on the expanded benefits available to members that choose to upgrade, and how you can join this growing network of community foundations leading on policy issues nationally and in their communities. They will also be joined by Trisha Finnegan, a member of the Council’s Advisory Group for the Center for Community Foundations and one of several stakeholders who approached the Council to ideate on what would become the CF Leadership Coalition. Trisha will share what its creation means for her own organization and the broader field looking to strengthen its collective voice.

This peer-learning space brings together funders working across the Asia-Pacific region and is designed to be an informal, peer-led conversation where participants can share experiences and learn from one another as legal, regulatory, and security dynamics continue to shift across the region. ICNL will share insights from what they are hearing from local partners, followed by an open discussion to surface funder questions, needs, and approaches.

Please reach out to Victoria Méndez if you have any questions.

This session offers practical tools and case studies to help funders listen quickly and, effectively, and without burdening grantees in times of upheaval—even when communities are sharing conflicting opinions and input.

This is a part of the Building Up to Building Together webinar series. If this work interests you, we hope to see you in Seattle for Building Together 2026.

Times of rapid change demand leaders skilled in both improvisation and imagination. Both of these skills require practice. This session introduces the foundations of strategic foresight and equips participants with practical techniques to expand possibility, challenge assumptions, and explore alternative futures.

This is a part of the Building Up to Building Together webinar series. If this work interests you, we hope to see you in Seattle for Building Together 2026.

Additional resources from this session:

• IFTF Drivers of Change Habit Worksheet
• IFTF Signals of Change Habit Worksheet