Crappy Funding Practices

Submit your Crappy Funding Practice here! 📢 https://lnkd.in/gStX7dBd #crappyfundingpractices

Imagine spending over 40 hours to complete an incredibly detailed grant application—including attending a mandatory Due Diligence Workshop—then being invited to a "Grant Award Announcement Ceremony." Sounds exciting, right? Except, here’s the catch: it turns out all applicants were invited. Yep, even those who ultimately didn’t get funded. Hey, Believe in Me, it’s one thing to celebrate the winners, but asking all applicants to spend more time at a promotional virtual presentation (hoping to be a winner) and then leave empty handed? I mean, believe in your applicants — that includes respecting the time and effort they’ve already put in. To make things worse, your youth empowerment program grant doesn’t fund salaries. Nonprofit work, especially when it comes to youth programs, requires people. And people need to be paid! If we really want to support change, let's start with valuing applicants’ time and making sure the funding covers the actual cost of making a difference. Got a funder mis-using your time? Let us know about their #CrappyFundingPractices here: https://lnkd.in/eMaXk6ZS

Flexible! Unrestricted! Good for any purpose! This sounds like the clothes we want to be wearing, but ALSO, we’re describing the #AwesomeFundingPractices of @The Lawrence Foundation. www. The Lawrence Foundation .org This top tier funder was brought to our attention by a satisfied applicant who said that they completed the proposal in 30 minutes, and they appreciated the simplicity of the requirements (“one substantive question”). The foundation has a broad mission, with no geographical boundaries, and it’s brought to you by the fine folks who created the Common Grant Application (Jeff Lawrence and Lori Mitchell). Check them out at https://lnkd.in/ezh5qRbQ. We’re bubbling over and can’t say it better than they did themselves: “We are okay if a portion of any grant that we award is used for reasonable indirect costs. 50% or lower [not a typo] would be reasonable for indirect costs.”  and “Our foundation does not require a grant report, but we are happy to read one if you would like to tell us what you did with the funds.” We’re also impressed with the 30-slide deck (available, though not required reading) explaining origins, philosophy, the source of the money (the sale of @Trillium to Intel), along with clear contact information. We may not agree with every word – philosophies can be like that – but A+ on the transparency! Bravo and thanks for the Common App! Are you uncommonly impressed with a funder’s approach? We want to hear about it! https://lnkd.in/eEmdJm7C

Eagles for Children, what a great idea! Collect donations from people who score an eagle on the country club golf course and pass the money on to children's charities. This could be a fantastic model!  But it’s not. You were reported to us for a trio of #CrappyFundingPractices: - Charging organizations an application fee of $100,  - Asking grant recipients to kick back $150 to create “thank you” signs for donors, and - Asking grant recipients to pay $150 a year to join a club of grant recipients in order to support Eagles for Children. Eagles for Children, we need to have a serious talk about your administrative expenses. We understand that you are a nonprofit yourselves and raising funds is a lot of work. But asking your recipients to give money back to you is not the way! Don’t worry, we have a solution. Stop claiming that “100% of the money raised on the course goes to children’s charity.” It’s time to own that you have administrative expenses, they’re a part of the budget, and your organization doesn’t function without them. Use some of the funds you get from country club golfers to cover your administrative expenses and stop asking the organizations that you fund to fund you. Is your funder doing things backwards? Tell us about it here: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

Today’s call out goes to Impact100 Global , a multi-national organization with many chapters, five (5) of which have been reported to us because they have some universal #CrappyFundingPractices. So yes, we are talking to all of you, @Impact100. We appreciate the idea behind your organization. Uniting and empowering women to make a collective impact is a great idea! But your application process has got to change. Despite some differences among the chapters, all of them use the same terrible template. Informational meeting, Letter of Interest, and an application form? OK. (Though if you’re going to call something an LOI, keep it to a page, people.)  Then – maybe – you move on to a site visit requiring the attendance of the CEO, CFO, program staff, and a client? Ummmm.   A gala event where several finalists present their projects, members vote, and only one finalist gets a grant? NO. Please, please stop and consider the impact of this process on the applicants. This goes way beyond the normal stress of waiting for application results. After a many-month process, you put multiple organizations together in a room, ask them to present their projects to all of your members, take time for your members to vote, then announce a winner – and multiple organizations then leave with nothing. One of our contacts reported needing to practice their breathing ahead of time in case they didn’t win! This high-stakes event may be fun for your members, but we assure you it’s not fun - or a good use of time - for the applicants. There’s a reason your process is referred to as “The Hunger Games for nonprofits.” When we say “philanthropy as entertainment” this is what we mean. And we hate it. Just stop. Do your funders expect you to sing for your supper? Tell us about it here: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

In the Make It Make Sense category, The Puffin Foundation, Ltd. has received a nomination for its head scratching application process: 1. Fill out a questionnaire online. 2. Get a paper application, which you will fill out and return by snail mail. 3. Get an email back with your login information. 4. Log in to the online portal and submit your grant proposal. Honestly, we’re just going to leave it there and let the nonsense speak for itself. If Crappy Funding Practices are getting you down, we’ll take you under our wing: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

Y’all. Alabama Power Foundation gives out grants of up to $1,000 to plant trees. What’s a reasonable amount of time to spend applying for this grant? What is a reasonable amount of information required to make decisions about the applications? Whatever your answer is, Alabama Power Foundation requires more. For starters, the application includes 46 required questions, plus 20 or so optional questions if you have some time on your hands. And then there are some questions you may not know off the top of your head, but they are definitely relevant to planting trees so you will have to spend some time finding out: What is the educational attainment of your organization’s leader? What percentage of first time volunteers return to volunteer a second time? How many years ago did you receive your tax exempt status? But wait, those 46 questions are apparently not the “actual grant request” because the “actual grant request” must include more info that they haven’t asked yet (implementation plan, timeline, etc) and be uploaded as an attachment. Keep it to four pages, please. And as a final touch, you are required to submit a project budget, evaluation plan, site photos, and site drawings. For $1,000. To plant trees. If grant-seeking leaves you feeling lost in the woods, tell us about it at https://lnkd.in/epwEMUdb.

In today’s episode of #CrappyFundingPractices, Foot Locker Foundation (via Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)) offers grants of up to $100,000 for organizations that provide opportunities for youth development, but they refuse to cover any salaries, even while requiring the org to have full-time staff. @Foot Locker. Honey. No. Who do you think delivers the programs? Let’s think this through. Say we spend $100,000 on power tools, meditation cushions, and workbooks. Do we drop the supplies in the parking lot and let the youth teach themselves carpentry / meditation / financial literacy? Or let’s say our salaries and overhead cost $500,000 to deliver a quality program using those supplies. Where are those funds supposed to come from? Maybe from our [sarcasm font] many funders who are happy to pay for nothing but salaries and overhead? Or do we decline funding that comes with these ridiculous restrictions because it costs us more than it provides? Foot Locker – and all of you other funders we haven’t tracked down yet – with these restrictions you are only paying a fraction of the cost borne by organizations to deliver your programs. You can do so much better. Are you running away from an unreasonable funder? Tell us about it here: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

🏅 Welcome to the Grant Application Olympics! 🏅 🎉 The race is on, folks! Ready, set, APPLY! 🎉 Ever dreamed of being an Olympic athlete? Well, here's your chance! 🏃♂️💨 SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS WISH BOOK FUND INC has taken grant applications to a whole new level. Forget about thoughtful proposals and detailed plans. This year, it's all about SPEED! ⏱️ Applications opened at 8 a.m. on July 29, and the "competition" closed once they hit 150 applications. 🎯 Because who needs time to thoughtfully articulate their mission when you can just dash to the finish line, right? 🏃♀️🏃♂️🏃♂️ Here's how to prepare: - Stretch those fingers. You don't want to cramp up midway through the application. - Hydrate. It's important to stay refreshed while you're racing against time. - Warm up your keyboard. This is a sprint, not a marathon! Or, as Mercury News Wish Book suggests, “For quicker submissions, applicants should familiarize themselves with the questions in the application form below AND the requirements listed in the Grants page BEFORE the July 29 opening.” Remember, folks, it's not about the quality of your work or the impact of your project. It's about how fast you can hit "submit." May the fastest typist win! 🥇💻 Funders, do better. Nonprofits deserve a fair chance, not a race against the clock. Know other funders who treat grant applicants like Olympic athletes? Share your stories of similarly bad funding practices with us here: https://lnkd.in/gStX7dBd.

❤️ Today we announce the first funder (that we know of) who changed their process in response to feedback they received here at CFP! 🙌(https://lnkd.in/eZ_bh-ei)   Internet Society Foundation has simplified their budget form and requirements, and acknowledged that their previous requirements were unnecessary. We so appreciate this reflection and revision. Thank you for leaving your grantees more time for their missions! 😍 May this be the first of many! ⏩ 💯 Funders, if you’ve taken feedback seriously and have made changes, we’d love to hear about it! 📣 https://lnkd.in/e5699w-E