Folly #44: Non-Financial Support

How often do foundations ask what nonprofits need?

There are so many ways that foundations can support nonprofits beyond grantmaking. In fact, a number of them ask grantees this question.

What additional assistance could we provide, beyond a grant check, to improve your project?

Of course, it's easier to answer honestly when you’ve already received the grant!. Here are a few ideas our clients have shared with funders:

1. Have the grant term align with fiscal or calendar quarters. Sometimes a funder’s timing is not a typical period, and the nonprofit has to create a whole series of new reports to match the unusual time parameters. It’s a time suck for the grantee to make these arbitrary adjustments outside of normal accounting.

2. Treat a strategic/growth grant as operating support; don’t ask for restricted grant accounting. Just like any other business, nonprofits monitor budget vs. actual expenses and revenue. So why not let the grantee share a P&L they already have rather than create a new report that artificially “applies” grant funding?

3. Introduce us to like-minded funders you know. This helps diversify revenue and share our work with others who care. Foundations want their grantees to get more grants – and a referral from one funder to another can be golden.

All Dressed Up

Recently, a funder invited us to do just that: present to a funding consortium. It was an exciting opportunity to reach many foundations interested in the same issue. Our client spent dozens of hours preparing – including at least two complete run-throughs with the entire team. They invested staff time. They were ready. They had some powerful storytelling backed up with facts.

They showed up. But the foundations didn’t. (Ok, out of twenty+, four showed up – two we knew and two we didn’t. The event felt empty.)

We’d assumed the host would record the presentation to share it with their network; they didn’t. (We scrambled at the last minute and did.)

So, in the end, this offer of non-financial support might have said…

Would you like to spend a ton of time to share your work with a nearly empty Zoom with funders?

Making an A** of U and Me

Such is the definition of assume. And perhaps we shouldn’t have. (For me it’s Rule #1 in cultivating individual donors – unlike foundations, they don’t make their giving guidelines clear, so never assume why someone gives. Ask.)

We assumed that the event would be well attended. We assumed it would be recorded. We assumed we’d have a copy of the recording to use for PR. We assumed a link would be send so those who missed it could watch.

Not very radical assumptions.

Photo by Nick Page on Unsplash.

Step Up

Foundations have financial and staff resources that most nonprofits do not. They likely have an invaluable staff member who excels at thinking ahead and problem solving. They can offer resources like these:

• Help with a slide deck

• Sharing the recorded session

• Asking for RSVPs so the nonprofit knows who plans to attend

• Asking for audience questions in advance

• An oral summary of the work while a foundation member scribes

After all, aren’t these things that any foundation would do for itself?