Don S. Doering, Ph.D.
Don Doering is the Principal and Founder of Impetus Foundation Advisors and has a career of building organizations and fostering innovation for conservation, poverty alleviation, and food systems. His expertise is philanthropic strategies to create change and has over 20 years of experience in strategy development and execution in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Don served as Executive Director of the JRS Biodiversity Foundation ($50M asset independent foundation) for eight years in which he led the transformation of the emergent institution to become a focused, strategic philanthropy. With Don’s leadership, JRS shifted its grantmaking directly to African institutions and its grantees achieved major increases in African biodiversity data and in public databases serving data for conservation.
From 2006-2011, Don served at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he helped to start and lead a sixty-five-person team in Agricultural Development that committed over $1.7 billion in four years to help poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. In addition to making about $250 million in grants in soils, root crops, agricultural data and extension as Program Officer, he later had responsibilities as Business Officer and as Senior Strategy Officer for group operations, financial planning, evaluation, and strategy processes. Don has held senior positions at the Wharton School of Business, World Resources Institute, Winrock International, and the International Food Policy Research Institute and consulted to Fortune500 companies and major non-profit organizations. He has served on and chaired governing boards, advisory boards, and task forces. Don is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University in Biophysics and received his Ph.D. in Biology from M.I.T.
Non-Profit Support Projects
The Grant Winning Webinar
StrategyServe.com
A joy of philanthropic work is to be of service to the not-for-profit organizations that are on the front lines of social and environmental issues. The Grant Winning Webinar (GWW) is a 4-5-hour, online workshop for nonprofit project and program leaders who want to spend more time on mission and less time struggling with grants. The workshop intentionally toggles between grant winning strategies and tools and the strategies and tools for the project planning that underpins effective grants. I offer the workshop pro bono on occasion and welcome sponsorship to offer the workshop to specific project teams, organizations, and networks. READ MORE
StrategyServe.com was an experiment in offering “pay what you can” advice to nonprofit organizations seeking expert, low-cost input to strategy, plans, grants, and communications. My hypothesis was the Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule would apply to advising nonprofits; a short intense effort on a specific document could deliver most of the value of my insight and expertise. The non-profit client pays after the engagement based upon what they can afford and the value they perceive. I blogged at StrategyServe.com on similar themes to the Ideas blog on this site from a nonprofit perspective. READ MORE
Salient Philanthropy: Creative Prompts to Jumpstart Philanthropic Strategy
I created a deck of cards, Salient Philanthropy, to jumpstart improvement and innovation in foundation strategy development. The prompts are thought-provoking, deliberately ambiguous, slightly subversive, and designed to be challenging. The cards were inspired by the Oblique Strategies card deck by musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt designed to stimulate artistic expression (shown here and purchasable at Enoweb.co.uk). The prompts help individuals and teams to think differently and take a different perspective on their strategy, program, or project. The cards require a stretch and departure from the typically linear questions we ask of philanthropic strategy. The only limit to uses of the creative prompts is your imagination and commitment to inquiry! Learn more at: Salient Philanthropy.