By Maria Mottola, Executive Director, New York Foundation - About 16 years ago I sat in the back of an auditorium listening to a panel of foundation executives give grantseekers advice about submitting proposals. They listed a litany of things that one should avoid. They seemed sincerely overwrought about binders and attachments and they especially dreaded single-spaced, 10 point sans sarif fonts. As a newly hired program officer, I promised myself I would never sound that cantankerous.
Monday was deadline day at our foundation. Three of us sat at a round table covered with blue folders, slowly making our way through proposal after proposal. As we waded through each one, I could feel myself getting agitated, or worse, cynical. “Is this really a new idea?” I thought reading one, “Can they really pull this off?” reading another. You know you need a break when you start to pit one problem against another: “Is THAT still an issue?” you think, “Didn’t someone solve that problem in the 80’s?” I could see myself on that panel, pleading with grant seekers “No more binders! No small fonts!”
It is much harder to ask for funding than to be asked. But something happens when you’re faced with a mountain of requests. Knowing that among that pile of requests are only six groups that will be funded, you feel an urge to make the pile smaller and increase the chances that funding will be available to more groups.
The limits of the foundations resources are real; and yet the need for resources to do good and important work in communities is almost limitless. It may be inevitable that as a reader, you begin to rationalize ways to eliminate competition if only to spare yourself the pain of having to decline a request for, well, no good reason.
One solution to this problem that some foundations take is to streamline the application process; on-line tools can screen for eligibility. Many foundations take only applications if they’ve been invited. What is the benefit to keeping the process open and reading what comes in? Our process implies accessibility, but aren’t we only raising false hopes or unrealistic expectations?
Maybe we are. But here’s another thing I have had to relearn after each “deadline day”. Once we’ve managed the imperfect process of narrowing down our choices to a manageable number, we start to visit prospective grantees and talk to people about the work they want to do. The words on paper (whatever size font) come alive and it’s impossible not to appreciate the hard work and aspirations they represent. Everything I think I know has to be reshuffled in my mind to accommodate the new things I learn from site visits – about neighborhoods, about problems communities’ face, about creative ways to solve them, and opportunities for change.
I don’t promise myself any more that I won’t be cantankerous, especially on the day after a deadline. But at least I know now that it is a momentary feeling that’s erased by the discovery of good work.
For more information about grantmakers and grantees see Do Nothing About Me Without Me: An Action Guide for Engaging Stakeholders, a publication by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. GEO membership is required to access the publication, but access to the executive summary is free.
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