Resources

Our Foundation is creating a policy for how often we should require an RFP process for evaluating and hiring investment advisors. By establishing a set timeline, we hope to make the process more about good governance and less about emotion. We are seeking feedback from funders who have established specific timeline for how often this process is undertaken.

Our Foundation is working on creating a financial status dashboard to present to our board on a quarterly basis. This would include investments and dividends, expenditures, future liabilities, etc. I’m wondering if others have examples of this type of dashboard that they would be willing to share with me?

I am spearheading a Salesforce adoption process within our foundation’s Program department. Our Philanthropy Group (development and donor services team) implemented it successfully over a year ago. Given the inherent Salesforce benefits (and clear use cases) for the development and donor services side of things, I am curious to learn if other foundations have successfully implemented Salesforce (or are on the journey to) within their grantmaking departments? If so, I would be grateful to learn and chat more with folks about: - What benefits have you seen from the process/adoption of Salesforce among your Program staff? (I.e. time saved, stronger relationships with grantees/community partners, automated processes and workflows, increased collaboration across your foundation’s departments, better knowledge management etc.) - What has not gone well? And/or what roadblocks do you see ahead? - Broadly, what does success look like for you? - What core or baseline data about your interactions with grantee (or non-grantee) partners does your Program staff consistently log (or is expected to log) in the system?

I am interested in getting info from funders with part-time staff regarding participation in social events the foundation puts on for staff. Holiday party, any team-building efforts such as a picnic, ballgame, etc. I’d like to know if things happen during the work day, are part-time staff invited, and if so, are they paid for this time as part of their part-time wages.

We are in the 2nd year of our now annual open funding grant cycle. By design, we decided to have an annual grant application deadline and generally follow the same grant cycle from applications submitted (July), to final awards announced (November), to grant agreements executed and funds paid (December). And in each funding cycle, identical grant periods, annual reporting and payment schedules (November/December). However, we’re now realizing (ha!) that as each funding cycle is annually held, we’ll have a collision of multiple funding cycles – both applications in the current year that are being approved and paid AND grants awarded in previous years that are submitting annual reports for their next payment all at the same time. Which of course will make for an extremely busy November/December every year. Glad we’re thinking about this now before we get too many cycles under our belt, but even with a 2018 and 2019 cycle, it’s a bit daunting especially for a smaller staff. Has anyone run into this before? Any advice?

Have you worked with and/or know of sector consultants that advise on racial equity in investment policies? I’m looking to learn about those with experience advising and facilitating discussion for funders, who have knowledge of the landscape of investment management firms.

We are planning the launch of a new mission acceleration grants program- grants for capacity building/TA. For our previous capacity building grantmaking, the Nonprofit Leadership and Effectiveness staff have made the funding decisions. It has been suggested that we form a grants committee to make these decisions. I have some concerns regarding this approach for these types of grants. Is anyone using a grants committee for capacity building grants? I’m curious to know how it structured including the types of folks that serve on the committee. Thanks in advance for any information or insights that you can provide.

Hello, We are exploring ways to improve our evaluation and learning as a partner. We are hoping to explore a platform that would go beyond a traditional reporting structure and would allow grant partners and community leaders to utilize something similar to a listserv to both inquire and share learnings from their work. We would love to hear about any successes and/or challenges in developing this type of resource, what platform might work, and if being a funder presented any barriers (thinking about power dynamics). Best,

Hello everyone, This is probably a perennial question for a lot of us, but I wanted to ask anyway and learn from your responses: - Does your foundation make any longer-term grants or engage in longer-term funding relationships with grantees through grants that are renewed over a number of years? - If yes, what does that look like? o Is it a well-defined program approach in which different types of grants are treated as automatic renewals or automatic multiyear grants? Or is it a funding mechanism your foundation has developed over time as a time-saver for the grantmaking staff? o Do you automate renewals? o Do you require anything different, any less or any more in the application or in the due diligence, from longer term or renewal grantees than you do from first-time or short-term grantees? o If you issue a formal agreement to your renewal or longer-term grantees, does that agreement look different from the one you would issue to a first time or one-time grantee? o Do you have a limit on how many times you will renew a grant? o What are some lessons learned about long-term renewals that you would be willing to share with other donors? Thank you for helping me think this through. All the best,

Good morning GEOList: We are a grantmaking and an operating foundation, and we collect a lot of data on connections between program cohort participants, and between participants and organizations in our grantmaking network. We are interested in hiring a consultant to help us clean and standardize the data, and answer questions like:  What does the network look like, within and between cohorts and organizations?  Have new connections developed over time?  Have existing connections been maintained and/or strengthened?  Are there more higher level interactions over time (e.g. professional rather than social)?  Where are the hubs/animators within the network? Where are the outliers? If you have worked with a firm that can provide social network analysis consulting, I am interested in hearing about your experience (good and bad) and to see any deliverables you are able to share.