If I were a philanthropic advisor trying to move faster between clients, here's the one thing I'd build first.
An ecosystem view of every cause area my clients work in.
Not a list of organizations. A full market picture. Who's funding early childhood education in Chicago. Who just entered criminal justice reform in the south. Where the money is concentrated and where nobody is looking.
Here's what building that picture actually looks like today:
1. Pull 990s for every foundation that might be relevant to the cause area
2. Cross-reference their giving history across multiple years to spot trends
3. Build a spreadsheet to track who's active, at what scale, and where
4. Research board members to find any path to a warm introduction
5. Call colleagues to see if anyone remembers something useful from a similar market
6. Repeat everything from scratch for the next client
It's slow. It's tedious. And most of it lands in a spreadsheet that risks becoming outdated the moment you finish it.
But it's worth doing. Advisors who see the full market before the first client conversation ask better questions, find better organizations, and move faster between engagements.
And if that sounds like too much work, Impala pulls the full funding ecosystem for any cause area in one click.