Reality Grantmaking part 2

As promised, I'm following up my first post on the Reality Grantmaking session I attended last week with a second post about the things I learned from the panel of foundation representatives that I hadn't considered so strongly before.

The first was how much they appreciated having the project budgets included in the documents, and how much detail they liked to see in those budgets. I'm not surprised that they like the budgets, I was just surprised at how important they were even in the extremely short 2-page letter of intent type of format that these mini-proposals were required to use. I've never included a budget in such a short proposal or in an LOI unless it was explicitly required by the funder but I think now I'll start. Now, since all of these mini-proposals did include budgets I assume it was required, but the funders praised the detailed budgets so highly that it now seems like a good idea to include even if the guidelines don't explicitly call for it.

Another thing I noticed was how much the funders, especially the one from the California Endowment, liked to see a brief list of or sentence about specific accomplishments of the organizations submitting requests. I always include any particularly notable or relevant accomplishments in the proposal section dealing with org history, but I thought it was sort of just another equally important but no more significant part of the whole section unless it was a really big national honor of some sort. Now I think that I will look more closely at the histories of the orgs I write for to find some specific accomplishments to really call out, even if the orgs don't usually talk them up that much themselves.

And then there was something in one of the proposals that, as soon as I saw it, I was very curious to hear what the panelists thought of it. Apparently the proposal format called for a discussion of what other funding was being sought, or had been secured, for the project. One org mentioned some of the other foundations approached, and then followed up by saying that whatever funds weren't raised from foundations or other donors would be provided from the operating budget.

I've said this once or twice in proposals, because I thought that funders who asked about other funding were interested in hearing that the project is sustainable and would be able to move forward even if they didn't give the full amount requested. It's not an ideal answer to this kind of question, but I've done it before because I thought that it showed that the project was in fact important to the org, important enough to fund out of their operating budget even if foundations weren't able to fully support it.

Well, I'm not doing this anymore, because these funders HATED it! They said it made it sound like their funding wasn't needed, and if it wasn't needed, why should they give it? By asking for a list of other funders they seemed more interested in just knowing who else was interested in the project, since they do of course know other foundations in their fields. They wanted to know what sort of company they were keeping, and to be assured that they weren't being asked to foot the whole bill for a single project but that the responsibility was shared among other funders they knew. They didn't mention sustainability as the reason for asking the question at all.

I wish I would've thought to ask them about this during the Q & A, but the Q & A was so short that I might not have gotten the opportunity anyhow. I also would have liked to ask about evaluation plans. A lot of foundations require orgs to include an evaluation plan in their proposals, a discussion of "how you will measure success" or something of that nature, but these proposals obviously weren't required to include anything like this. I wanted to hear about how they weigh the evaluation plans when they are included, how crucial they are to the decision-making process, how in-depth they needed to be, what they were looking for in general... Evaluation is a big topic in the field right now, with some controversy over whether nonprofits really have the capacity to do meaningful evaluation for themselves or not. My opinion on this is a whole 'nother topic, so I won't go into it right now, but I would've loved to hear them weigh in on it anyhow.

Tomorrow I'm attending another Foundation Center event, with corporate grantmakers this time. It's another panel discussion, though it's not Reality Grantmaking, just a regular talk. Anyhow if it's useful to me or thought-provoking that's the next thing I'll post about.

Reality Grantmaking part 1

The other day I went to a Foundation Center workshop/event called Reality Grantmaking. It’s a really great series they do every once in a while, where representatives from 3 or 4 different funders review several actual short grant proposals to give us all a glimpse into their process for deciding what projects to fund. The event organizers put out the word ahead of time for interested nonprofits to write and submit the 2-page proposals, and the one that has the highest combined score from the funder representatives at the end of the workshop wins the $1000 grant.

This session was specifically for Health and Human Services orgs, and the funders were The San Francisco Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, The California Endowment, and Pacific Foundation Services which represents 11 family foundations including Bothin and Morris Stulsaft. These are all funders that I often have the opportunity to approach on behalf of clients, so this was a very useful event for me to attend.

I especially appreciated the opportunity to confirm some of the opinions on proposal-writing that I already held. Because we all love affirmation, right? Here are a few of those that especially stood out for me, in no particular order.

1. Formatting, grammar, usage, and spelling will not totally sink a great project idea, but it can make a difference in how kindly—or unkindly—a program officer feels toward the proposal. The rep from Pacific Foundation Services, Mary Gregory, frequently pointed out that she must read so many proposals that it makes her life more difficult if the print is too small, or there are no headings, or the proposal is crammed onto the pages with no empty white space to relieve the eyes. Damon Scott from Kaiser Permanente repeatedly complimented well-organized budget tables in proposals that had them. He also endeared himself to me in particular by pointing out one of my own pet peeves: the misuse of “less” vs. “fewer.” I’m with you on that one Damon, it’s constant and bugs me to no end! I know this makes me picky, and he admitted the same, but I just can’t help it. Dianne Yamashiro-Omi of The California Endowment also referred to the “flow” of a proposal’s wording and thought process, and Mary Gregory further added that grammar problems make more work for her when she is preparing to present proposals to her trustees.

2. Putting a program into emotional terms by telling a story or personalizing an issue grabs the reader’s attention and can help make your proposal’s case. On this point the funders called out some specific wording choices in the proposals. One described the org’s services as “personal and heartfelt caring,” which Mary Gregory liked. Another proposal, which requested funding for adaptive technology to help disabled clients communicate better, quoted a program staff member as saying, “Everybody should be able to communicate,” and told of a client who broke into tears of happiness when given one of the devices. Michele Williams of the San Francisco Foundation loved these touches, saying it made her think, Wow! (yes, she actually said “wow”) This will really affect lives. Damon Scott agreed that something which “tugs on the heart” can make a proposal stand out.

3. Just because you understand what your organization does and what your jargon means doesn’t mean that funders will. One proposal was from a nonprofit dealing with a health condition called Fragile X, and every single person on the panel expressed confusion even after reading the whole document as to what this means and who it affects. Another proposal referred to HIV/STI services… we all know what HIV is, but STI isn’t as widely used as a term. I knew what it was (sexually transmitted infections) because I’ve actually worked in the field, and it wasn’t too hard to figure out from context, but still, the funder reps didn’t all have that knowledge and didn’t want to have to worry that they were assuming the wrong thing when they interpreted it. They shouldn’t have to figure it out or look it up on their own, it’s the proposal writer’s job to make it clear (This is why I advise having at least one person unfamiliar with your org and its work proof your proposal for you to root out jargon and make sure everything is clearly explained).

So those are the top three things that stood out for me, mostly because of the widespread agreement on the panel, and also because they are rules that I already use in my grantwriting and recommend for others.

In my next post (in a couple of days probably) I’ll talk more about the things from the Reality Grantmaking session that surprised me a little, either because they answered questions I had, or seemed more important to the funders than I thought they would, or were just factors I hadn’t really considered in detail before.