Moving directly from a full-time job raising money to a full-time job as a grantmaker has led me to a bit of an identity crisis at times. I have found myself griping about foundations’ actions, while simultaneously realizing I am now one of them (and probably at times have been part of the problem). I also have much more appreciation for the amazing Program Officers I worked with as a fundraiser, who had easy applications, treated me with respect and always responded to my emails (among other things).
Perhaps because of this, I’ve thought a lot about what I’ve tried to carry forward in my role and thought some of this advice might be helpful for other foundations, especially if you’ve never been on the “asking” side.
- It’s VERY stressful to raise money. The Executive Director or Development Director is probably waking up at night in a cold sweat about raising the budget for that year or making payroll. Because of this, it’s so important to not lead anyone on and be as honest as possible about funding. I wish funders had been more brutally honest with me. If you know a proposal is unlikely to be approved, try to kindly prepare an organization for this. If your board was on the fence, but approved a grant, try to prepare them that funding may not continue.
- Nonprofits most of the time have no idea why something wasn’t funded. And if they knew they would probably be better for it. If specific concerns came up during the evaluation process, please, please share it with them. I would have been SO grateful to have concrete ideas about how to improve proposals or site visits. Foundations/donors have this incredible bird eye view that can and should be shared so much more!
- Nonprofits budget based on what was received this year. This seems obvious, but what this means in practice is that a nonprofit organization is probably planning on a grant from your foundation at a similar size every year on a similar timeline, unless you’ve told them otherwise. If you know that’s unlikely, it will save so much heartache to tell them that funding really isn’t likely to continue. This is particularly true if your grant was a significant portion of the budget. If you had been giving an organization a major gift for a few years and something changed this year, it would be so much better to taper their funding off, rather than go from $100,000 to $0.
- It’s a fundraisers job to ask for money and generally never give up. If you come from the business world it’s just like sales. I think having some of my board members understand that helps them have compassion when it might seem like someone is particularly persistent.
- Nonprofits will jump through any hoop you ask them, so be kind with this power. You might think you’re asking for a simple piece of data that should be easy to email by tomorrow. But they might not have that data, or they might have a grant due at 5pm and sending you answers to 3 “quick” questions means they’re at the office until 7pm.
- There’s a never-ending list of deadlines for nonprofits, which is why they’re always turning grants in the day they are due. Trust me. I am very type A, and I never missed a deadline, but I also could NEVER find a way to get ahead of deadlines by more than 24 hours. A new deadline always pops up, and most development departments are so understaffed that it’s just impossible.
- Making something due January 1st is just about the most awful thing you could do. See above for why, but in case it’s not clear, this means you’re asking someone (or multiple people!) to work the last week of the year when almost everyone else gets to be with their families. Even if they figured out a way to get ahead of things during the busiest time of the year, someone is probably taking vacation in December so it’s impossible to gather what is needed in time. I always ended December working on some grant and hating that foundation with a passion.
I hope some of my learning is helpful. I know I’m not perfect and I’ve made tons of mistakes in my two years since moving to the foundation world. But I do try to remember as much as I can that foundations are truly only as good as their grantee partners, thus being as supportive as I can to nonprofits doing the work is my job.