What makes philanthropy’s best grant-making officers so well regarded?
The Center for Effective Philanthropy recently released a report that zeroes in on key aspects of productive, positive relationships between grant-making institutions and nonprofit grantees.
At the top of the list are program officers who share the following qualities: an understanding of grantees’ work and the context within which they operate; a commitment to transparency about the grant-application process; and a disinclination to pressure nonprofits to alter approaches or proposals to win grants.
The report is based on survey data gathered over more than a decade from tens of thousands of nonprofit grantees; it builds on a study that the Center for Effective Philanthropy published in 2010 examining the traits of strong foundation-grantee relationships.
The Chronicle interviewed three program officers who received top marks in the 2017 report and asked them how they approach their work. Here are a few practices they employ to forge strong relationships with the nonprofits they support.
Recognize common interests and goals.
Program officers note the power imbalance between foundations that hold many millions of dollars or more and nonprofits that need money to operate, but they say that the imbalance shouldn’t hamstring relationships.
Irfan Hasan, a program director at the New York Community Trust, says that grant-making organizations and grantees must enter “discussions with some level of trust that we both are looking to get to the same goal.”
He and others say that grant makers and charities should acknowledge that they need each other to effect change.
“We can’t do our work in a vacuum,” Mr. Hasan said. “We need trustworthy and honest partners on the nonprofit side. That means we [the grant makers] need to take some risk; we need to build relationships. And I think for the nonprofits, it means that every conversation with a foundation isn’t about the dollars the foundation has to offer.”
Nonprofit leaders and fundraisers should regard educating a foundation about the lay of the land as equally important to any grant project they may be carrying out, he says.
“Now, the nonprofit may not always agree. Money is critical, and that is what foundations give,” Mr. Hasan said. “But a well-informed philanthropic sector is only possible if a nonprofit sector is there to help inform us.”
Get to know grantees and the context of their work.
Jamie Allison, vice president for grants at the S.H. Cowell Foundation, says nonprofit grantees are the subject-matter experts.
“I bring some knowledge to our interactions, for sure, but I can’t possibly know as much about the applicant/grantee’s context as the grantee/applicant does,” Ms. Allison wrote in an email. “So, I enter the relationship with a learning posture. I ask questions, I am curious, I listen. I try to add value.”
Ms. Allison says she makes site visits to all of her grantees at least once a year.
“There are things that I can observe during a visit that maybe wasn’t captured in the written proposal or written reports,” she says. In addition to communication by phone and email, she also signs up for grantees’ online newsletters and annual reports “so that when I meet with them, I have more context about their work beyond what the Cowell Foundation may be funding.”
Elizabeth Love, senior program officer at the Houston Endowment, says she shows up again and again in the communities where her grantees and potential grantees are working, sometimes participating in the work herself. Consistency is important, Ms. Love says, helping her build up the foundation’s credibility and breadth of knowledge in key grant-making areas.
This approach proved valuable amid a current project to revitalize a historically black Houston community known as the Third Ward. Community members, worried about rising real-estate prices and displacement, were already at work developing a plan that would ensure residents had options for affordable housing. Intrigued, Ms. Love and her colleagues started attending meetings with residents.
“I remember a moment — we were in a community meeting — and folks were talking about the issue of health care,” Ms. Love said.
It turned out that a local health facility that residents depended on had shuttered several years earlier; they saw bringing it back or replacing it as a key step to fortifying the neighborhood. Ms. Love says the idea wasn’t even on her radar, but the foundation is now working with supporters to try to reopen a health-care facility in the Third Ward.
Be transparent.
The grant makers interviewed say they try to keep lines of communication open with nonprofits.
The New York Community Trust believes it should be accessible to all nonprofits, from multibillion-dollar medical centers to one-person advocacy groups.
“Every Tuesday morning our vice president assigns us proposals that have come in the previous week. We have an open application process, and I think that is really, really important for grantees to know,” says Mr. Hasan.
He talks to someone new every week, he says. “We are accessible. We are available, and people can submit [proposals],” Mr. Hasan says.
The foundation also commits to giving applicants a response within a set time frame.
“It may not be the answer you want — i.e., sorry we can’t fund you — but we will close the loop with you.”
Avoid making mandates.
Ms. Allison says that she has learned to be careful about what she says to grantees because her comments can be interpreted as directives.
“I’ve learned to use phrases like ‘this is a suggestion’ or ‘I have an idea; it may not be a good one’ or ‘I’m thinking aloud,’ to indicate that my interest is in having a conversation, not enforcing my will or mandating that the grantee take action based on what they might hear as advice,” Ms. Allison says.
Be open to tough telephone calls.
When a nonprofit runs into problems with a project, it can be hard for someone to contact the grant maker to share bad news, the program officers say. But they tell their grantees that they need to hear about stumbling blocks early on to offer assistance.
“We know we are not going to enact changes by playing it safe,” says Ms. Love. “We really want our grantees to push boundaries in order to remove barriers and change systems. And we know that along with risk there can be challenges and there can be sometime failures.”
She works to present the foundation as a partner in finding a solution, she says.
“It can be just as valuable sometimes to learn what strategies or approaches didn’t work so that we as a community and field don’t do them again,” Ms. Love says.
