Resources

Greetings, Our Foundation is currently looking for a new system to manage Payroll and Benefits. We are a private family foundation with 7 staff members. I am curious if there are organizations similar in size that use these applications to manage their benefits and payroll? Furthermore, I am curious to learn how folks structure HR if it is not in-house, what type of system(s) do you utilize? Please share your thoughts and insight if you have any! Kindly, Lindsey

Hello GEO community, I am hoping you can help. As part of our racial equity learning journey, we’re looking to survey our staff to get an understanding of their awareness & perceptions of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and ideas for where we should go next in terms of centering racial equity in how we operate as an organization and in how we do grantmaking (strategies, policies and practices). We’ve got lots of good guides and resources, like the one put out by GEO. Right now, what would be most helpful is actual survey instruments (e.g., survey questions, survey framing, etc) that you’ve used at your philanthropic organization? Thanks in advance for considering and for sharing,

Hello Everyone, We are looking at our Vacation/Sick Leave policies and considering transitioning to a PTO bank for leave. Is anyone willing to share their PTO policies, including any carryover or payout upon termination with us? Thank you, ___

Hi all, We’d like to extend the term of a loan to a nonprofit to allow 12 additional months before the outstanding balance is due to the Foundation. Does anyone have a loan extension template we could take a look at? Thanks, Gina ___

Hi all, We are trying to balance a streamlined workflow and moving toward more trust-based philanthropy with our due diligence processes. To that end, two questions (if you have a chance to reply, please include reasoning behind your responses): 1. How many of you require the submission of a final report for a previous grant before releasing a new award? For instance, if a grantee applies around the same time annually, do you require a final report submission first even if that means there is lag time between the grant approval and the funding release? 2. What financial documents do you require with a proposal submission? A Form 990? Audit or financial review? The aforementioned plus current financial statements? Anything else? Any feedback from the GEO community on your processes is appreciated! Thanks so much, Stephanie

Hello all, I’m reaching out to ask for your insights around two questions we have. First, as we consider funding new organizations in areas where we are not yet active, we are currently updating our grantee cohort criteria. Does your foundation fund in cohorts? If so, would you be willing to share the criteria you all are using? Any learnings shared will be greatly appreciated. Also, on an unrelated note, one of our community organizing grantee partners in New York has an executive director who will soon leave her position and is looking for funding to support a 2-3 month learning sabbatical. Do you know of any funders that currently have sabbatical programs for something like this? So appreciative of any insights shared. Many thanks,

Hello everyone, We're reaching out to see if anyone has any resources about the difference between a CEO, Executive Director and a President of a Community Foundation? Info related to any foundation type would also be helpful. If there are differences in the job descriptions for those titles or if it is simply a choice of term for the title, we'd be thankful for any info you can share. Many thanks! Georganna

Hi GEOlist, Submitting this question on behalf of a GEO member who’s asked to remain anonymous: “We are looking for feedback and/or advice from foundations with experience communicating a reduction in grantmaking to partners and grantees. We are in early stages of strategic planning and have had our budget significantly reduced for future years. Any insight or tips would be helpful -- what strategies and messaging worked or what didn't?” Looking forward to any support you can provide! Kyle

Hi there, I am reaching out to ask this others in this community to share your insights/experiences re: providing stipends/honorariums/payments for engaging in foundation-sponsored activities such as but not limited to: serving on an advisory committee, participating in a learning collaborative, reviewing report drafts, providing expert guidance, participating in a meeting (advising capacity), etc. These could be funds to an individual or an organization. Note: We are NOT talking here about incentives for participating in surveys, interviews, or focus groups (i.e., more direct research type of activities) as we see that as different. We’d love to learn more from this community about your approach and processes for these types of funds. Any and all comments are greatly appreciated, but here are some general questions: • Does your foundation provide funding for participation in foundation-sponsored activities such as: serving on an advisory committee, participating in a learning collaborative, reviewing report drafts, providing expert guidance, participating in a meeting (advising capacity)? • When would you consider providing such funds and to whom? Do you have criteria for making these determinations? • How do you determine the amount of such funding to provide? Do you have criteria for making these determinations? • Does your foundation have standard guidelines or considerations for staff on how to make these decisions (e.g., standard rates, funding limits, restrictions on who can receive these funds, etc.)? Thank you in advance for any information you can share. Gina

Good afternoon – I would like to ask my grantmaking peers willing to share – what did your path to building in equity framework or processes look like as a Grantmaker? We are working alongside an area partner funder to identify our strategies and goals for this work and I was curious if anyone else was willing to share their experiences. We have recently started diving into the Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF) provided by GEO and their partners. Over the past few years, our organization has increased focus on diversity internally but as we prepare to implement new frameworks or philosophies in our programs, we have a lot of questions. We do not want to set up a process that does not sustain or embed equity across our work. We don’t want to check boxes, so to speak. Have you successfully implemented the EEF or are you working towards it? I’d love to chat with you! Heather