Family offices + foundations
Turn ambition + capital
into action.
We help principals, family offices and foundations turn broad intent into clear strategies, portfolios, initiatives and operating systems that can actually move.
You don’t need another generic philanthropy strategy. You need enough clarity to make decisions, enough structure to move confidently and enough flexibility to keep learning. We work particularly well with lean teams and principals who want sophisticated senior support without building a large permanent organisation around themselves.
01
Starting or resetting a foundation
Turn values and broad interests into a focused mandate, priorities, decision criteria and a first portfolio.
02
Building a portfolio
Create the thesis, sourcing approach, evaluation process and operating rhythm for grants, impact investments or a combination of tools.
03
Exploring catalytic capital
Identify where different forms of capital can unlock outcomes that conventional grants or investment alone may not.
04
Assessing opportunities
Bring independent judgment, research and structured decision-making to unusual or complex opportunities.
05
Building a new initiative
Move from an idea to the operating model, partners, funding, team and first real-world test.
06
Becoming more effective without becoming bigger
Create simple processes, tools, knowledge systems and decision structures that make a lean team disproportionately capable.
In practice
What this has looked like.
Lightbulb Trust
FROM INTENT TO A WORKING INVESTMENT PRACTICE.
Creating a private trust’s impact-investment thesis and process, then managing the investments and supporting the companies it backed.
- Thesis, process, pipeline, portfolio
- Ongoing part-time role alongside the trust
- Investment lead + portfolio support
ANONYMOUS · AI + EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
TURNING A BIG AI AMBITION INTO A TESTABLE BET.
A founder-led initiative was exploring how it could meaningfully shape the future of AI in Africa. We turned a broad field of possibilities into a focused strategy and a portfolio of testable concepts, then designed a viability sprint around one of the boldest: a new mechanism for pooling funding, technology, tools and expertise to expand AI capacity.
- AI
- RESEARCH + STRATEGY
- ORGANIZATION DESIGN
SDK FOUNDATION
BUILDING A FAMILY FOUNDATION FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES.
SDK Foundation began with significant ambition, a wide field of possible issues and a desire to be more than a passive grantmaker.
x Impact Studio has worked alongside the family to turn that ambition into a focused, operating foundation: sharpening the mission, defining where to focus first, designing an approach across grants and impact investments, and building the practical systems needed to make good decisions.
The work has moved from strategy into action. Together we have developed the foundation’s first portfolio approach, built opportunity pipelines and decision criteria, explored new areas through focused research, assessed live grants and investments, and created an ongoing rhythm for learning and decision-making.
- MISSION + STRATEGY
- PORTFOLIO DESIGN: GRANTS + IMPACT INVESTING
- RESEARCH + DILIGENCE
Editor note — hidden on the live site.
Placeholder for an anonymised second example (e.g. a newly created private family foundation taken from broad intent to a Year 1 posture, decision criteria, operating rhythm and first bets). Add once the client has approved the wording.
How it works
Senior judgment, close to the principal, without the institution.
Colman works directly with the principal and the lean team around them. Specialists — investors, researchers, operators, subject-matter experts — join only when the work needs them.
The aim is a foundation or office that can make good decisions quickly, learn from its first bets and stay small on purpose.
What are you trying to put into motion?
Tell us about the ambition, the capital and where it’s getting stuck. A few sentences are enough.
