Resources

There is a foundation interested in giving multi year grants for the first time. They are searching for some best practices in how to design and implement this new approach, what budgeting guidelines to use (specifically best ways to decide what percentage of their grant making to allocate for this), and any other insights related to implementing multi year grants in a sustainable and impactful way.

One goal we have is to combine final reports with renewal proposals. Does anyone have examples to share of this sort of combined report/proposal format and how you’ve sequenced deadlines, conversations and due diligence, and renewal grant recommendations?

In addition to advancing EDI in our own work and that of our grant partners, we want to share learnings from the Diversity in Theater initiative with the broader theater community and other funders working at the intersection of arts and social justice. Have you taken on a similar learning, evaluation, and field-building initiative at your foundation? If so, would you be willing to share your process and approach with us, including potential pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to explore?

One of our members is interested in learning more about what funders and nonprofits are offering in terms of education benefits for their employees. They are not seeking information on tuition reimbursement (employee pays first, seeks reimbursement), but rather scholarship or grant programs that support employees in their pursuit of a higher education degree or credential.

We are exploring the possibility of co-funding shared, back-office services for a group of mutual grantees (shared-services is essentially pooling and “outsourcing” administrative functions to alleviate the burden on small-staff and emerging nonprofits). We’d like to hear from other grantmakers who have successfully funded this type of work for their communities. Specifically, has anyone identified and funded a suite of services like HR or bookkeeping, to build the capacity of their emerging nonprofits? If so, what was your experience like? What did you consider in the evaluation process? Or, if you’ve developed your own shared-services model as part of your broader capacity building work, how did you go about this?

Has anyone ever used a term of years for the privilege of advising on the fund? The second question relates to the IRS pronouncement (Notice 2017-73) that the fulfillment of donor pledges through a grant from a donor advised fund would be treated as incurring “no more than incidental benefit” for the donor advised fund advisor. Have you addressed this in your donor advised fund policy? If so, how did you frame it? Have you also addressed charity events and membership fees?

I am researching pediatric vision programs that provide diagnostic and corrective services for a private foundation in the KC area. The foundation is primarily interested in programs with school-based delivery. I’m interested in learning about similar programs across the country and any lessons learned from foundations’ investments in those programs.

What requirements do you put on the match? For example, must the funds be from a new donor to qualify, or do you simply look at total contributed income in one year versus the previous year? How do you calculate/verify the amount of qualifying funds raised? For example, do you require final 990s or audited financial statements?

For those of you who have been through foundation strategy shifts, I am wondering what you have learned about communicating with grantees and non-grantees throughout the process? What worked well, and what did not seem to go so well?

Our foundation is interested in creating a grant opportunity for local faith communities to apply to support the creation or ongoing support of an existing program. If your foundation has this type of opportunity, I’d be interested in your grant criteria, etc.