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Grantmaking

The following links and resources have been selected to provide grantmakers with a quick reference to useful sources of information on different aspects of foundation grantmaking. Many of the resources listed are available in pdf format and can be printed directly from the sites.

 

Grantmaking Practice

• A Guide to Giving for Australians, 2010, by Vanessa Meachen. This guide offers ideas, strategies and solutions for grantmakers to employ.

• More Than Money: Making A Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant, December 2008, by the Center for Effective Philanthropy. This report describes what is entailed in providing assistance in ways that go beyond the provision of funds.

• The Grantmaking Tango: Issues for Funders, 2004, by Julia Unwin, The Baring Foundation, London. A comprehensive 95-page guide to the choices and strategies that grantmakers face, written by an independent adviser to the Baring Foundation (UK).

 

Planning

• Due Diligence Done Well: A Guide for Grantmakers, 2010, by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO). A primer and a guidebook to the process of gathering information about prospective grantees during pre-grant assessment.

• Funding for Impact: How to Design Strategic Grantmaking Programs, 2006, TCC Group. Explores six steps in designing a grantmaking program for grantmakers undertaking new programs or those rethinking existing programs.

• Mapping Change: Using a Theory of Change to Guide Planning and Evaluation, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide explaining how funders can use a theory of change to develop strong action plans and to prepare for evaluation assessments.

• Personal Strategy: Mobilizing Yourself for Effective Grant Making, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide on how grant makers can leverage their strengths in service to their objectives.

• Tool for Assessing Startup Organizations: A Due Diligence Supplement for Grantmakers, 2003, La Piana Inc., Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 2003. Discusses how to use the due diligence tool in effectively assessing the capacity of an applicant.

• Scanning the Landscape, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide to help grantmakers conduct a field scan to identify prospects and trends pertinent to grantmaking in a given field.

• Scanning and Networking, 2005, Grantcraft. An eight-page supplement to Scanning the Landscape, is a virtual roundtable that offers a range of approaches and tools to help grantmakers, through advice from experienced practitioners.

 

Making the Grant

• Saying Yes/Saying No to Applicants, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide that reviews basic decision rules, helps grantmakers to understand grant seeker expectations, and discusses managing roles and rationale for decisions.

• Using Competitions and RFPs, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide exploring how grant makers decide whether to use an RFP (Request for Proposal), how to shape competition to serve grantmakers’ goals, and ways to manage the process

• Technology Grantmaking Toolkit, 2005, The Changing Technology Funding Practices Project. Addresses strategic uses of technology and identifies some common needs and tools to address those needs.

• Grant Making With a Gender Lens, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide on how to use gender analysis in grant making, how it can help grantees become more effective, and how it can be applied to foundations.

 

Working with Grantees

• Do Nothing About Me Without Me: An Action Guide for Engaging Stakeholders, 2010, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO). Offers a variety of tools and examples of practice, ranging from low touch to high touch, that grantmakers can undertake to get the input of grantees and community members, to formulate goals and approaches together, and to share in grantmaking.  While the publication itself is only available to GEO members, a six-page executive summary is available on the GEO web site.

• Foundation Communication: The Grantee Perspective, 2006, Center for Effective Philanthropy. Based on a study done with foundation grantees, this paper suggests three strategies that are most effective in good communications between foundation leaders and grantees: maintaining consistency, being responsive, and implementing evaluation and reporting requirements.

• When Projects Flounder, 2005, Grantcraft. A guide helping grant makers to recognize warning signs of a failing project, to decide whether to intervene, and how to shape a response to the situation.

 

Collaboration

• Funder Collaboratives: Why and How Funders Work Together, 2009, Grantcraft. Asks: Can foundations make a bigger impact with grant dollars by working together than by going it alone? Yes, as long as members define their goals, set clear operational guidelines, and work from the start to make the collaborative function well for grantees.

• What can grantmakers do to make a funder collaborative work well – from the grantee’s point of view?, 2010, Grantcraft. Offers lessons learned by grantees, including the importance of using a collaborative approach for more comprehensive efforts, building efficiencies that work to grantees’ benefit, striving for consensus among the funders and investing in the management of the collaborative.

• The Reality Underneath the Buzz of Partnerships: The Potential and Pitfalls of Partnering, 2005, Dr. Francie Ostrower, Stanford Social Innovation Review. Analyzes lessons learned from collaboration, specifically partnerships between community foundations and arts organizations.

• Philanthropies Working Together: Myths and Realities, 2005, Robert Hughes, The Foundation Center. A discussion guide examining the forces that promote or stifle current philanthropic approaches to collaboration, ranging from informal sharing of information to structured arrangements.

 

Grantmaking Areas

(includes Arts, Capacity Building, Education, Emergencies, Environment, Neighbourhood, Public Policy, Rural, Social Justice)

• Advancing Good Governance: How Grantmakers Invest in the Governance of NonProfit Organizations, 2009, by Kathy Hedge, Eva Nico and Lindsay Fox of Board Source and FSG Social Impact Advisors. Makes the case for investing in good governance, gives examples of grantmaker investments to strengthen governance and guidance for determining your involvement in governance.

• Women and Philanthropy: Giving by and for Women and Girls, Summer 2008, by Philanthropy Australia. Looks at the growth in numbers and influence of women in philanthropy.

• Building Capacity, Granting for Impact, Ontario Trillium Foundation, 2005. A summary of OTF’s research on the subject of capacity building among voluntary organizations in Ontario.

• Cultivating Rural Prosperity : A Case for Investment, Inspiration and Innovation, 2005, Foundation for Rural Living. Final report of the Rural Philanthropy Roundtable. A dialogue between philanthropy and community leaders to understand the perspectives and stimulate investment in rural Canada.

• Community Vision, Vitality and Confidence in the World We Want, February 2006, The Philanthropic Initiative. A discussion of community investment strategies, illustrated by a case study of the 20-year effort by the Lyndhurst Foundation to help Chattanooga, Tennessee, reverse its economic and social decline.

• Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit, 2006, Thomas J. Tierney. Outlines three imperatives that must be addressed in the nonprofit sector: investment in leadership capacity; refining management rewards to retain and attract talent; and expanding recruiting horizons and fostering individual career mobility.

• Investing in Leadership, Volume 1: A Grantmaker’s Framework for Understanding Nonprofit Leadership Development, 2005, Betsy Hubbard and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. Focuses on the question of whether grantmakers should support leadership development as a key capacity-building strategy.

• Investing in Leadership, Volume 2: Inspiration and Ideas from Philanthropy’s Latest Frontier, 2006, Kathleen P. Enright, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. A practical exploration of a sample of the leadership development programs being utilized now in the nonprofit sector.

• Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking, 2005, Grantmakers for Education. A roadmap outlining eight principles to help donors guide their grantmaking efforts in education.

• Public Policy Grantmaking Toolkit, 2005, Northern California Grantmakers. An entire website devoted to public policy grantmaking which includes resources for getting started, gathering information, establishing best practices, and building capacity.

• Foundations and Public Policy Grantmaking, 2008, by Julia Coffman, The James Irvine Foundation.

• Directory of Non-profit Organizations Engaged in Public Policy, October 2005. A large listing of organizations across the country and in many fields to help organizations find collaborators in their own field or relevant policy material.

• Social Justice Philanthropy: The Latest Trend or a Lasting Lens for Grantmaking?, 2005, the U.S. National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Defines and discusses the concept of social justice philanthropy and provides an assessment of its future in philanthropy. Executive summary.