Bush Foundation

Welcome to New Books and Philanthropy, a channel on the New Books Network.

I'm Nick Prozek, and today I'm speaking with Jen Ford Reedy, president of the Bush Foundation, about her book, Please Be Good at Philanthropy, An Introduction to Grantmaking Strategy and Practice, published by Disruption Books.

This candid guide cuts through the complexities of foundation work to explore the singular nature of foundation strategy.

Written for board members, staff members, and anyone navigating the world of philanthropy, this book demystifies grantmaking while offering practical insights into how foundations can operate more effectively.

I think for every strategy, there's some way of being able to get that, really what it is is feedback, right? The evaluation is feedback to say, is this working? What should I change?

And you do cover those feedback loops really smartly in your book.

So I have to ask more about the Bush Foundation, right? Because that was your testing ground for a lot of these ideas.

Just frame the experience of coming into the philanthropic world from the consulting world, what you learned, and then how that has, you know, how all of your new discoveries and your trials and tests of things delivered this book.

Welcome to New Books and Philanthropy, a channel on the New Books Network.

I'm Nick Posick, and today I'm speaking with Jen Ford Reedy, president of the Bush Foundation, about her book, Please Be Good at Philanthropy, An Introduction to Grantmaking Strategy and Practice, published by Disruption Books.

This candid guide cuts through the complexities of foundation work to explore the singular nature of foundation strategy.

Written for board members, staff members, and anyone navigating the world of philanthropy, this book demystifies grantmaking while offering practical insights into how foundations can operate more effectively.

I think for every strategy, there's some way of being able to get that, really what it is is feedback, right? The evaluation is feedback to say, is this working? What should I change?

And you do cover those feedback loops really smartly in your book.

So I have to ask more about the Bush Foundation, right? Because that was your testing ground for a lot of these ideas.

Just bring the experience of coming into the philanthropic world from the consulting world, what you learned, and then how that has, you know, how all of your new discoveries and your trials and tests of things delivered this book.

So LifeScape received a $100,000 Beyond Idea grant in 2025 for the Safe Care Project.

The Beyond Idea grant program funds are meant to support community-based ideas that move South Dakota forward in partnership with the Bush Foundation.

Can you walk us through what Safe Care is and why this idea was so important to you and your team and the people you serve?

LifeScape's mission is to empower people to live their best life.

But to modernize it and...

It's funny too, I had a t-shirt done by a person who won the Bush Foundation grant, which is huge here, and he's a Dakota artist, and he had where everyone's reading the circle in a different way on a t-shirt, and kind of a cartoon where An old person looking like me is reading the paper, next person's a magazine, next person's a laptop, next person's an iPad, and the next person's a phone around the circle, around the fire reading the circle.

So that's what we're trying to do is to get people that don't need to absolutely touch it You know, one of the things that really interests me about radio is the downloads that we have.

I had no idea.