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Posted by Sarah Coldwell from Grants Consultant, a(n) grantseeker, on 2008-08-26 10:27:48 | ||
| As a former Director of Grants Management for a mid size non profit in Boston, I was aware of the discrepancies among foundation proposals and reporting procedures, which took needless amounts of time and $ from operating our program day to day. While our organization did have the funding to pay for my consulting fees, many other smaller organizations are strapped to pay for the cost of a grantwriter. These days, with the outcomes based reporting required, this is even more difficult, and the program staff and development staff must be well versed in this type of programming strategy. Also, it takes equal, or more, time (and money) to plan for and write for a smaller grant amount as it does for a larger one. The smaller organizations with less staff are the ones who suffer most in this environment. The larger organizations can pay to hire grant specialists, while the executive director of a smaller organization is often the one who must write the proposals and reports. | ||
Posted by Gwen Finegan from Mercy Health Partners, a(n) grantseeker, on 2008-08-06 14:29:55 | ||
| The report reflects my experiences working with both grantseekers and grantmakers. It could go even further in its next iteration. The impact of communication and relationships should be explored in more detail. The dynamics between funder and grantee, and how they impact both the funding decision and grant implementation, are worth more study. I have additional five points: 1) Many great ideas generated by visionaries in small nonprofits could be conveyed well by video or digital media, especially in pre-screening or qualifying a concept; 2) Small nonprofits often do not have paid grantwriting staff, and the resulting transience in this position is responsible for some of the gaffes and gaps that plague grantmakers; 3) Big grantmakers should consider having enough staff who can understand and communicate well with grassroots staff, including offering technical assistance for grant preparation; 4) Since many large funders are better informed about national best practices than the cash-strapped nonprofits, could they do more to share their knowledge? For example, our local United Ways request supporting data about best practices or evidence-based models for proposed programs. Could there be a compilation and/or evaluation of what is most often cited in United Way proposals and a followup about which programs best applied the models they cited? If widely shared, this could help a lot of nonprofits who have zero budget for training, education, or conferences. 5) Recently I have encountered more requests for scanned attachments. Although I work in an organization with 7,000 employees, the budget is lean. I do not have grant research software, a typewriter, or a scanner. I was able to get access to Adobe Acrobat by accident and then sworn to secrecy. Hardware and technology challenges are compounded exponentially in small organizations. | ||
Posted by Lisa Johnson from MN Council on Foundations, a(n) philanthropic support organization, on 2008-07-10 15:59:23 | ||
| We are holding a Project Streamline presentation and discussion session on July 23, 2008, in St. Paul, MN. For registration information, see our web site: www.mcf.org | ||
Posted by Luiza Souza from Ford Foundation - Brazil Office, a(n) grantmaker, on 2008-07-03 10:26:13 | ||
| I found the report very interesting and thought provoking. The report presents many examples of grantmakers’ exaggerated requirements -- which, I totally agree, need to be rethought and simplified when possible. However, as the relationship between grantmakers and grantseekers needs to be enhanced on both sides, I’d like make a few comments on the other side of the story: 1) My office now requires grantseekers to fill out their budget and financial report in Excel spreadsheets we provide, which already has the formulas for adding and converting local currency to dollars. Why do we do so? Not because we want to make things more difficult for our grantees, but simply because we were so tired of receiving budgets and reports with the basic math errors! We are not going to give up funding good and relevant proposal just because the budget doesn’t add up correctly, but we also feel it is not fair to use our staff’s time to correct such basic mistakes. Requiring the use of our spreadsheet was the way we found to avoid this. Some grantseekers may find this bureaucratic, others appreciate that they only have to enter in the figures and not worry about the math. 2) Jeff Lawrence wrote: “Interestingly, even though we asked for much less information, grantseekers continued to load us up with information.” I have the same experience. I often receive copies of bank statements along with the financial report, although we explicitly ask our grantees not to send such documents. Sometimes I feel I am the one being “drowned in paper”! 3) The report many times mentions the trouble it is for a grantseeking organization has to adjust to its many donors. Well, I have more than 80 grants under my responsibility as a grants administrator and it also wouldn’t be reasonable to expect me to adjust to each of them… I believe that grantmakers should serve the organizations they funds as well as possible, my point here is: grantseekers also need to help us help them. I look forward to other people’s comments on this. | ||
Posted by Jeff Lawrence from The Lawrence Foundation and the Common Grant Application, a(n) grantmaker, on 2008-07-03 00:27:07 | ||
| Sorry again, this is part three of my comments. The second part got cut off in mid-sentence. The first two parts precede these comments... They tend to be revolutionary and at least initially, must be sufficiently resilient and flexible to survive ambiguity, incoherence and uncertainty as the relationships and loops of the relevant ecosystems earrange themselves to support the new value propositions. We think the report is a good start and important, but we would like to respectfully suggest that it will be important to raise the visibility of what we consider some important underlying issues as we've outlined in this posting. Thanks. | ||
Posted by Jeff Lawrence from The Lawrence Foundation and the Common Grant Application, a(n) grantmaker, on 2008-07-03 00:21:27 | ||
| Sorry, this is part two of my comments, the first part which precedes these comments got cut off in mid-sentence... Interestingly, we've been approached by staff at non-profits on a number of occasions to have conversations with their executives about the importance of investing in their business infrastructure. The list of stories we've heard goes on. We know many grantmakers are doing good jobs managing their relationships with other grantseekers. We think there are a number of common issues tying these stories together related to the asymmetry of the grantseeker / grantmaker relationship, a lack of incentives to be efficient, a lack of understanding about the true business and opportunity costs of the grantmaking process and a lack of transparency and accountability. We think it will be important to raise the visibility of these issues and make them part of the discussion. My second set comments are, as the Common Grant Application (www.commongrantapplication.com). The Common Grant Application is intended to provide one piece of the puzzle alluded to in the report, making the grantmaking process more efficient for everybody. It was inspired by, but is not a project of, The Lawrence Foundation. At the Common Grant Application, we've been talking to many grantmakers and grantseekers. We've been struck by a number of things. - The incentives to improve the quality, efficacy and efficiency of the grantmaking process are unclear. The for-profit world is driven by the need to access capital markets or return profits to shareholders. For-profits that fail go out of business. The non-profit world doesn't really have this same pressure. We think there should be some discussion of what potential and effective motivating factors are or will be to drive the industry to change. - There seems to be very little understanding of the true costs of the grantmaking process (both direct, indirect and opportunity). Few people seem to have gone through the math of what it really costs to either submit an application, process an application or process a report. We believe these costs should be quantified to the extent possible, disseminated and understood. We believe it is important to make this information visible, and a part of the financial decision making process of boards and executives. - The range of grantmaking processes is wide (from index cards to full scale realtime online systems). The information grantmakers want, the information grantmakers use, and the decision making and monitoring processes are all over the place. We think any suggestions that are offered will have to be suggestive, not prescriptive. The suggestions will have to account for the range of information systems, usage methods, financial resources and time scales of the non-profits. We think it will be important to decide whether suggestions will need to focused on initially appealing to the self interests of grantseekers and grantmakers or to broader industry wide interests. - Many grantmakers have expressed to us their dissatisfaction with the closed nature of many grantmaking systems and processes. The switching costs of closed systems are high, which limits the ability to experiment and innovate with new ideas and concepts. We grew up in the telecommunication business, and saw first hand the power of the hybridization of competition and cooperation. The industry worked together to create open systems and open processes and then used those standards as the foundation to enable competition and dramatic innovations. Over the course of a decade this transformation was complete and universal. There is some interesting literature on innovation and how industries undergo change and transformation. Sustaining ideas improve the performance of industries, organizations or technologies along dimensions that have previously been valued. They tend to be cumulative in their effect. Disruptive ideas have a different value proposition than was previously available. They tend to be revolutionary and at least initially, must be sufficiently resilient and flexible to survive am | ||
Posted by Jeff Lawrence from The Lawrence Foundation and the Common Grant Application, a(n) grantmaker, on 2008-07-03 00:16:50 | ||
| I'd like to offer a couple of sets of comments. Please excuse the somewhat rambling nature of the comments. The first set of comments is as The Lawrence Foundation, a private family foundation with about $5 million in assets that receives 500+ grant applications per year. We think the report accurately reflects many things we've heard from grantseekers and that we've observed ourselves. The anecdotal stories we've heard at times have been astonishing. - A grantseeker told us they had just been awarded a $5 million grant by a grantmaker. They wanted to give it back. Even though they were only part way into their program, the interference of the grantmaker into the day to day decision making of the grantseeker and the associated reporting requirements were so onerous, they concluded the $5 million wasn't worth the pain and effort. - A grantseeker told us about one particularly difficult "online" application process they had to follow. They downloaded a PDF file from a grantmaker, printed it out, typed out the responses to the questions on a separate piece of paper, physically cut out the answers from the piece of paper, pasted those answers onto the PDF printout and then sent the resulting document by mail to the grantmaker. The grantseeker spent days preparing this "online" application since this was the only form the grantmaker would accept for consideration. - A grantseeker told us about an application they submitted to fairly large grantmaker. They didn't hear anything about the status of their application for some time and followed up. The grantmaker responded the application was in the system; and asked them to call back in a few weeks. They waited a few weeks and called back. The grantmaker told them the application was still in the system and asked them to call back again. They did. After some back and forth the grantmaker told them the application had been lost, the grant cycle was closed and please try again in the next cycle. The grantseeker told us they felt the grantmaker was either incompetent or lying. They couldn't tell which. - A grantseeker identified a grantmaker they thought might be a good candidate to approach with a funding request. They approached the grantmaker to ask if it made sense for them to apply. The grantmaker didn't answer their question directly but told them to look at their Web site for their guidelines. The Web site was so poorly organized the grantseeker spent hours trying to find one small important piece of information to determine if they could submit an application. The grantseeker told us that finding that one piece of information was harder than untying the Gordian knot. - We used to ask our grantseekers for quite a bit of information in our application. Grantseekers were spending significant amounts of time filling out our application and providing information that we weren't using for our decision making process. After some time we realized what a waste of time it was for grantseekers and started requiring much less mandatory information. Interestingly, even though we asked for much less information, grantseekers continued to load us up with information. We believe that is because grantseekers, whether they are willing to say it out loud or not, look at the grantmaking process as a competition. Even though we asked for less information, their thinking was that if some other grantseeker provides more information, they have to provide the same or more information to stay competitive in the application process. Changing this behavior is an interesting chicken or egg problem. - Many non-profit staff members have complained to us about the unwillingness of their boards and executives to invest in their business infrastructure. They've complained to us on numerous occasions about how their organizations want to spend most, if not all, of their money on their programs. On first glance that makes sense, but on second glance, if the staff doesn't have the tools it needs, we believe the quality, efficacy and efficiency of the programs they offer will suffer. Interestingly, we've been ap | ||
Posted by Marilyn Green from an unnamed organization, a(n) grantseeker, on 2008-06-30 12:44:13 | ||
| Re Maya Lampson's post on 4/30: She writes, "provides the opportunity for grantees to apply for multiple funding sources at once." Now, THAT, is something to stand up and shout YES! about. Also feel very excited about the prospect of a common grant application such as the one already in use in Colorado! It is the variation of information requested on each proposal that makes my head sping and takes way too much time!! | ||
Posted by Frances Sykes from Pascale Sykes Foundation, Inc., a(n) foundation, on 2008-05-22 16:17:08 | ||
| Your findings are out of the realm of our experiences. We award a select number of 5 year grants, ranging $50,000-$135,000 per year for 4-5 years. We accept proposals only after preliminary approval of the project and a site visit. We consider 15-18 proposals per year at our annual meeting. Each grantee gives its goals and objectives. We require 3 reports per year. Our board discusses each report and gets back to the agency with trustee comments and suggestions. We expect grantees to use the preparation of reports as opportunities to pull staff and volunteers together to discuss strengths and challenges and to adjust their programs accordingly. We expect agencies to "reinvent themselves" constantly because it is the only way to succeed in their mission; needs are always changing. We require 7 copies of each proposal and each report. Our volunteer trustees read and analyze each report to prepare for our lively discussions. If the proposals and reports were submitted electronically, each trustee would have to print each one--an onerous burden. Surely for $135,000 per year, the agency can slip into the budget money to hire a teenager to print and collate 7 copies. We consider proposals and reports absolutely essential. The proposal defines the project with goals, objectives and specific behaviors to be achieved. The reports measure the progress toward the previously selected goals. Progress is viewed both in-house and from outside by trustees. As you can tell, we are hands on. Yes, some of our grantees have fabricated results or promised what they had no intention to deliver. We have discovered several of them. Our grantees have asked us for suggestions and reminded us to get back to them soon with trustee comments on their reports. During site visits, staff often ask our trustees for program suggestions. Our experiences have been entirely different from yours even though most of our practices are contrary to those recommended by this study. | ||
Posted by Lee Wheeler-Berliner from an unnamed organization, a(n) community foundation, on 2008-05-22 12:38:30 | ||
| I whole-heartedly agree with the recommendation to Relieve the Burden. On the specific issue of budgets, however, I see the potential for a broader-based response. The report reflects the sentiment that grantmakers need to see budgets in the same format to compare proposals. I believe that the issue is not "a lack of financial acumen" on the side of grantseekers or grantmakers, but a lack of standard formats. Investors can compare corporate financial statements thanks to the standard requirements of GAAP and FASB, but similar tools do not exist in the third sector. Such a tool would go beyond assisting grantmakers to serving as an accountability and self-regulation mechanism for the sector. Obviously it would require wide-scale support and likely an ample supply of technical assistance to implement. Are there any individual entities or consortium groups working on such a project? | ||
Posted by Jeff Pryor from Anschutz Family Foundation, a(n) family foundation, on 2008-05-06 14:54:30 | ||
| oops! Noticed a few typos in the closing paragraph - glad this is a forum and hopefully accepting of commentary on the fly! | ||
Posted by Jeff Pryor from Anschutz Family Foundation, a(n) Family Foundation, on 2008-05-06 14:50:06 | ||
| Many points made in the report have been dealt with as Colorado recently completed the revision of the its Common Grant Application. REF: http://www.coloradocommongrantforms.org/ Colorado has been fortunate to have a common grant in place for years. Early on, both grantmakers and grantseekers from the nonprofit community recognized the value and efficiency of a common grant, later adding a common report. Beginning in 2006, a significant, inclusive and comprehensive effort resulted in the revision of the Colorado Common Grant Application. In addition to the comments and encourgements found in Project Streamline, the Colorado group identified additional justifications: - BEST PRACTICES - the Common Grant reinforces best practices. Endorsed by both the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, the CGA advances the best practices identified by the Colorado Nonprofit Association. - ENHANCED SUSTAINABILITY - the CGA serves as a uniform tool - many grantmakers are interested in sustainability - therefore, if an organization writes a well-crafted grant request, then it will serve to improve the opportunity for other grants. - COLLABORATION Colorado private grantmakers have initiated conversations with the State of Colorado and its many grantmaking entities to consider both a common grant and a common database on key indicators. - IMPROVED CAPACITY - The revised CGA purposefully asks questions to help enhance the capacity of nonprofits to be effective - specific questions are asked about evaluation, governance, inclusiveness, finance, etc = all designed to improve organizations' vitality and performance. - IMPROVED GRANTWRITING SKILLS - the revised CGA resulted from a comprehensive effort to engage grantmakers, nonprofit, capacity building organizations, United Way, corporate grantmaking, higher education, et al. In addition to the CGA, Colorado now has a parallel document - a users guide, which has been called the most comprehensive grantwriting tool in its own regard. - TECHNOLOGY POTENTIAL - interested in advancing the CGA to the next level, a group of grantmakers is exploring online grant processes - lead by the Packard Foundation, the opportunity to explore technology as a tool is underway. -- ACTIVE EXCHANGE - Colorado has a long tradition of cooperation and collaboration between sectors and between grantmakers and nonprofit organizations. The revised CGA with its surveys, focus groups, beta testing and invigorated and inclusive orientation invited and encourged conversation, objective review and idenity protected surveys. The converations, debate, heartfelt discussions, regard, respect, exchange - all apart of the process. | ||
Posted by Alex Sirota from an unnamed organization, a(n) Government, on 2008-05-05 10:10:00 | ||
| There is a way to open-source grant management software developed inside of government thus making it available to the public. This approach has been done in the US through the Freedom of Information Act. Please contact me at alex.sirota@ontario.ca for more details. I would love a conversation on this important and timely report. | ||
Posted by Dan Bassill from Tutor/Mentor Connection, a(n) Non Profit, on 2008-05-02 16:33:42 | ||
| I fully support the findings of the report and would like to suggest a step further. If grant makers know what impact they want to have (e.g. ending poverty) and where they want to have an impact (city, state, etc), the next step would be to build an understanding of the type of organizations who do the type of work that might reach the desired result. If someone kept a database, and web site library, with information on all of the organizations doing the type of work the donor felt would achieve the result, the donor could sort by zip code to learn what groups were in the area he wanted to help, and then review web sites, like shopper, to see who he wants to help. At that point he could decide how much he wants to help and send a check. If this were happening just part of the time, imagine the cost that might be moved from fund raising to service provision and how this change might reduce the burn out of non profit executives and keep more of them in their jobs longer. I'm hosting information about Chicago tutor/mentor programs at http://www.tutormentorconnection.org which any donor can use to shop and choose which neighborhoods, and which programs they might support. I'd like to contribute any think I can to this forum and the streamlining of the fundraising process. | ||
Posted by Maya Lampson from The Ford Foundation, a(n) Private Foundation, on 2008-04-30 15:49:40 | ||
| This is an elegantly succinct and vitally relevant report for the field – nice work! For the Next Steps section I’d like to let the committee members know about a session I attended recently at the GEO conference on something called The Cultural Data Project, a statewide grantee data collection and management tool created for cultural organization that standardizes the financial segment of grant application processes and provides the opportunity for grantees to apply for multiple funding sources at once as well as create annual reports. The CDP launched in Pennsylvania, went to Maryland and is now being considered for California and New York. The session speakers were Barbara Lippman (The Pew Charitable Trusts), Moy Eng (The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation) and John McGuirk (The James Irvine Foundation). The website is: http://www.pacdp.org/home.aspx | ||
Posted by anonymous from an unnamed organization, a(n) Philanthropy Association, on 2008-04-29 16:28:23 | ||
| This is the Association of Small Foundations, responding to the comment about smaller local funders. ASF is a membership association representing over 3,000 small-staffed and unstaffed foundations around the country. We are pleased to be a partner in Project Streamline, and like all partners are distributing the project's research report and draft principles to our members. Many ASF members participated in the survey last summer on which the report is based. We are inviting members to post comments about the report, and will engage them in discussions about streamlining during the coming months. Thank you! | ||
Posted by anonymous from an unnamed organization, a(n) human services, on 2008-04-28 16:07:03 | ||
| I read about your report in the Association of Fundraising Professionals "eWire." As I had just finished the four proposals that we have due on May 1, I read your report front to back. I just have to say, "Hear, hear!" I hope that your findings are taken seriously by funders large and small. I'm afraid, however, that the people who most need to heed your message are the ones who will never hear about it. It seems to me that smaller local funders are the most likely to have lengthy, redundant application processes with vague questions that even their own staff don't understand. These are the funders that are least likely to be members of grantmaker organizations and are unlikely to have trained professional staff who take the initiative to improve their processes. Is there any way to disseminate your report to the thousands of small funders who won't seek it out on their own? | ||
Posted by Michael Barrett from ASPCA, a(n) animal welfare provider and grantmaker, on 2008-04-23 12:50:45 | ||
| This is really great. It's stirring thoughts in me about how to restructure our grantmaking process as I implement GIFTS. We are fortunate in that our grant officers, for the most part, have a relationship with many of the animal welfare organizations to which we grant money. Nonetheless, we have a burdensome (on us and the grantees) grantmaking process which we are overhauling. This report is giving me fuel and also teaching me some new angles on how to institute an efficient process without undue burdens. | ||
| www.projectstreamline.org | ||