Five Ways to Improve Philanthropy Now
Add See What I Mean to the chorus of voices encouraging change in philanthropy. So many institutions adjusted approaches during the pandemic and many of those changes would be excellent to make permanent. Here’s a quick list of ways we can improve the grantmaking process.
Number one: Write down the unwritten rules about organizations that can and cannot get funding.
Foundations put rules on their website, but inside most foundations, there's another set of rules that apply. Get your staff in a room to write down and review the last five years of funding denials and approvals. You’ll start to see these unwritten rules emerge. Perhaps you list a county on the edge of your area, but in the last 5 years, you funded only 1 out of 50 requests from that county. Perhaps you say you're interested in health, but the only type of health proposals you funded were parks and recreation. If that’s the case, stop saying health, and start saying parks and recreation. I don't want funders to close off the opportunities available, but it would improve the funding process if funders were honest about the things they are likely to say no to.
Number two: Stop asking for attachments of publicly available information.
“Stop creating more work for applicants and start using the information that is already accessible to you.”
As the funder, take responsibility to look up whether the applicant’s organization’s 501c3 status is still in good standing. Instead of asking for a list of board of directors, go look at their website. Wondering about their mission statement, the description of their organization, and the basics of who they serve? All of that can be found on an organization's website or in a brochure. Stop asking for an audited financial statement for an organization that's requesting $5,000 in a 2 million dollar budget. What are you going to learn in an audit that's going to help you make a decision about a $5,000 grant for an after-school program? Stop creating more work for applicants, and start using the information that is already accessible to you.
Number three: Delete three questions from your application.
Grant seekers tell funders over and over again their questions are repetitive. Funders feel like grant seekers tell them the same thing over and over again, yet we continue to ask more of the same questions. Funders, review your application and find the places where you're getting similar information, then delete those questions. Consider the questions that get you and your reviewer distracted from the most important question: Does this project align with our mission? Our job as funders is not to run or manage grantee organizations. Ask only questions that help you find out how your mission will move forward with the incredible work of this grant seeker.
Number Four: Accept reports completed for another funder.
At the foundation I used to work for we knew that another funder in the community asked for rigorous reports. They had much higher expectations about data at the end of a grant and throughout the grant cycle. We asked fewer questions. Along the way we discovered our grant seekers were getting better and better at measuring their progress. This was in part, thanks to the tough questions our funders down the hall asked. So why would we ask for anything else? We started inviting our grant recipients to simply send us a copy of the report form they sent to any other funder that was supporting the same project or a similar project. Don't ask grantees to retype it or cut and paste into a form. Simply upload it. You can save grant seekers the trouble of completing an extra report.
Number Five: Ask grant seekers how long it takes to complete your paperwork.
At the McElroy Trust, we asked grant seekers this question and saw that it took them an average of 10 hours to complete our fairly simple, four page application. During the 2008 recession, our funding level dropped. We received many applications and supported a few. We recognized that applications denied equaled about 800 hours of work for organizations who didn’t even receive funds from us. Surely those 800 hours were better spent helping people rather than filling out paperwork. We moved to a one-page application, lowering the average amount of time to complete the application to just 2 hours. Consider whether you want grant seekers’ hours to be applied to helping people or filling out your paperwork, then add this question to your report form: How long did this take you to complete? We can’t know how much trouble we are causing or how much progress we are making unless we ask.
Want to consider more ways to improve your grantmaking process? Check out this equitable grantmaking continuum created by Nonprofit AF and RVC Seattle.