Hundreds of foundations pledged to alter their grant-making practices in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Now comes the tricky part: making sure they stick to it.
What might help, some foundation leaders say, is a seal, or badge, foundations could display on their websites and in social media that publicly announces their intentions.
On March 21, a few dozen grant makers pledged to, among other things, provide general operating support to grantees, reduce the number of required site visits and written reports, let grantees off the hook if they miss deadlines or cancel events, and support advocacy efforts to ensure an equitable response to the virus and the economic hardship it has created.
The pledge was conceived by leaders at the Ford Foundation and a small group of other grant makers, including those that have been pushing for a “trust-based” approach to philanthropy in which foundations minimize paperwork grantees have to complete and provide more general operating grants.
Over the first week, the call to action attracted dozens more foundations, and in the following weeks the pledge snowballed. As of Tuesday, 692 grant makers had signed it.
That so many foundations lined up so quickly behind a series of practices that grant makers had been considering for years demolishes a popular adage about grant-maker idiosyncrasies, says Kathleen Enright, president of the Council on Foundations.
“I think more people are rejecting the premise of ‘if you’ve seen one foundation, you’ve seen one foundation,’ " Enright said, adding that the premise behind the saying enabled foundations to perpetuate grant-making practices that did not serve grantees well.
The council and other organizations are in the early stages of an effort to ensure that grant makers have educational materials and advice from peers on how to make necessary changes.
Enright says the council is designing a badge and hopes to share it with signatories in the coming weeks.
“Until practices are actually aligned behind the statement, we’re not where we want to be,” she said. “Putting a badge on your website means you’re asking your community and your grantees to hold you accountable.”
Keeping Climate Work Alive
Jacqueline Copeland, founder of the WISE Fund, came up with the idea for a badge. The fund is making about $500,000 in grants to climate-change activists and technologists of African descent in Africa, Australia, Brazil, and the United States. Instead of supporting specific projects, Copeland says, the fund will simply go to helping those people survive the crisis so they can pursue their work in the future.
Affixing a badge to a foundation’s digital presence can help pledge signers market their commitment on social media and introduce the practices the pledge embodies to a wider array of donor-advised-fund holders and giving-circle members, Copeland said. She suggested that it will keep foundations from veering from their promise.
“A seal can help expand the number of foundations that are willing to be flexible in their giving guidelines,” she said. “It can also help foundations sustain that flexibility and agility for the next phase of rebuilding so this doesn’t become a one-off, where once shelter-in-place is over we go back to our standard ways of operating.”
‘Go for It’
The staff of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in New Jersey began hearing about the pledge in the days before the grant maker’s March board meeting.
Tanuja Dehne, Dodge’s president, said getting board signoff was easy. Last year, more than half of the foundation’s grants went toward general operating support. And, Dehne said, the foundation was already contemplating changes in its grant application and reporting process that would remove some of the hassle for grantees.
“It wasn’t really a challenging thing for our board to say, Go for it,” Dehne says.
While the immediate crisis made some of the changes a no-brainer, not all of them will be permanent. For instance, Dodge supports long-running programs in leadership development and culturally responsive arts education, which aims to reduce historical barriers to access for students of color. The move to general operating support Dodge committed to in the pledge doesn’t mean those programs are on ice forever.
“I wouldn’t say we’ll eliminate projects,” Dehne said. “Projects are important. So there is definitely a place for project work, but we really wanted to make sure our grantees and the sector have the autonomy and flexibility to prioritize the health and well-being of their staff.”
Increased Payout
Around the same time the pledge was first being circulated, nine philanthropy organizations penned an open letter calling on foundations to give more generously during the crisis, even if it means digging into their endowments.
Enright, the council’s president, said that increased payout is a “natural companion” to the other items on the pledge but that it didn’t come up when the pledge was crafted.
Dehne, the head of the Dodge Foundation, said she and her staff are trying to balance their own financial stability with the pressing needs of their grantees and the people they serve. At Dodge, and at grant makers across the country, Dehne said, trustees and foundation leaders are seeing the carnage the pandemic has caused and are mulling how much extra to give.
“I think it’s going to happen,” she said. “That’s the reality of it.”
