Resources

Hello – we’re conducting some research on grants management systems (GMS) and wanted to hear from others if they have a GMS that they might recommend? The system needs to be robust with both internal management and external application infrastructure. System needs to support at minimum: multiple grants rounds within a year with no less than 15 unique applications; deployment of multi-year grants; processing of more than 2500 grant awards within a year; integration with a financial management system and process no less than 3000 payments within a year; management of over 100 internal users and over 900 external users; processing of at least $150mm in a single, year-long grant cycle; and robust reporting functionality. Thank you!

Hi All, Would anyone be willing to share examples of grantmaking policies prohibiting grants to hate groups, organizations under active investigation and/or organizations unreflective of the foundation's values? If the policy was written for a community foundation that would be especially helpful. Thank you,

Does anyone have any recommended resources for evaluating an Executive Director of a small foundation?

Good Afternoon All, For effective and inclusive community change planning, our foundation has begun to work closely with local community members who will be affected by the proposals and projects under discussion. Our foundation is examining how to appropriately compensate individuals and collaborators who bring their community knowledge and experience to the planning and decision-making table. We are seeking to engage community partners through several avenues, such as serving on a committee or task force, attending meetings, and bringing questions and proposals for discussion back to neighbors and networks. We understand that providing expertise in a meaningful way and on an ongoing basis is a large time commitment for residents and agency staff members alike. To that end, we are seeking information from fellow funders on how you compensate key stakeholders and community partners for their time. How do you select key stakeholders? How are they compensated? Any best practices on communicating engagement/partnership expectations? Thank you in advance for any information you can share. Warmly,

Hello Colleagues, We are wondering about cyber insurance, particularly in view of remote work. Has anyone had experience with getting cyber insurance and/or the benefits (or not) of having such insurance? We’re wondering if there is a trend toward getting this insurance in the foundation/philanthropy serving organization, world. Thanks so much for any perspective you can share!

Good morning, At Global Fund for Children, we are exploring creating an online community space for our partners working with children and youth around the world. I would love to hear from our GEO community what has been your experience in launching and managing an online community of partners? What's worked? What hasn't? Right now, we have experience with some of our regional cohort groups using Whatsapp. We've heard back from some partners that they are interested in a more unique dedicated space (so not a Facebook or LinkedIn group). Would also love to hear any experiences with specific platforms, especially those that allow for a multilingual community. (From my research, there are few available!). A note on some of the objectives and potentials we're seeing with an online community space: • Facilitate network building within and across regions and issues • Share resources and events created by partners and Global Fund for Children • Create a library with capacity development resources • Share time-sensitive opportunities for funding, training, and advocacy • Generate conversation online and virtually about timely issues • Keep partners connected even if no longer grant recipients Thanks so much in advance for sharing your experience! I'm also happy to set up a time to chat or for a group of us to share experiences, depending on the response.

Hi all, We are exploring how/if to adjust our PTO policy due to COVID (and just generally) and I’m interested in the following: • Do you allow staff to carry over unused vacation days? o If so, is there a time by which they have to use those days? • If you do not allow carryover days typically, are you allowing it in 2021 due to COVID? o If so, are you placing restrictions on when days must be used and/or how many days may be carried over? • How many vacation days are new staff allotted? • What does accrual look like (at what point do staff accrue more days, how many days, etc.?) • Do you allow employees to “buy” vacation time? Is unused vacation time eligible for pay out? Thanks for your input!

The St. David’s Foundation is in the process of re-evaluating when site visits with our grantees are conducted, and the purpose of those visits.  Currently, we conduct site visits for large grant requests, as part of our due diligence process.  We are considering revising this to move site visits to after the award is made (disconnected from due diligence) and to put more of a focus on joint learning.  We are interested to learn from the experiences peer foundations who use site visits to further their work, specifically: What is the overall purpose of the visit? Do the site visits occur before or after the grant is made? What topics are generally covered during the visit?  If you feel your site visit process adds significant value to your work, what components create this value?  What practices should be avoided? Thank you in advance for sharing your practices and ideas.   Kimberly McPherson

We’re seeking info about what foundations might be doing with regard to remote work stipends to acknowledge and compensate the costs staff are incurring for working from home. We’re trying to get a sense if there might be something like an “industry standard” developing for such a stipend.   Thanks for your insights, Georganna 

Hi there - as we plan for next year we are looking at how long we fund the organizations in our portfolio. We don't have any rules about this. A large number of organizations have been in our portfolio for 6 years or more. I am thinking about how to balance long-term commitment with bringing in new partners in a context where I can't increase staff. Would appreciate any examples of how folks manage this. Thanks! Lisa