I’m talking about GrantAdvisor.org, a new website that allows all of us to anonymously review foundations. This has been a critical missing piece in the funder-grantee dynamics. Let’s face it, because of power differentials, we nonprofits do not always give honest feedback to foundations. And a common complaint I get from foundations is that they can never tell if we nonprofits are being open and transparent about what they could be doing better. Even when foundations solicit feedback, reassure grantees that they can be truthful, and give us each a basket of mini-muffins and a puppy, it is still difficult for us nonprofits to open up.
Which led to things like the one time I had to write a proposal that required a six-page narrative, ten attachments, including a budget tailored to this funder, and the kicker—a page of labels for the attachments, to be printed out and each label had to be literally cut and pasted onto the ten attachments. It was a grant for $4,000. Eight months later, we got awarded $1,000. Yeah, we should not have even applied, but we were in start-up mode and four-grand was a lot of money. Now, wouldn’t be nice if this funder got some honest feedback from dozens of people that their grantmaking process was so horrible that the agony and frustration created by it threaten to unleash the demon-god Cthulhu upon the world?
Here are some FAQs. I am on the National Leadership Panel and have been involved with helping to design this project for the past two years. What is really exciting about this is that GrantAdvisor is a joint effort between nonprofits and foundations, as you can tell by this page of brilliant, highly-attractive, and modest leaders in the sector. This is a pilot project, and it’s already been going really well, with over 450 reviews written in just a month, 30 foundations going live, 132 foundations with at least one review, and 76 foundations appointing key contacts to provide responses to each review on their profile.
But to make this work, we need everyone in the sector involved:
Nonprofit colleagues: Please go to GrantAdvisor.org and write reviews today if you have worked with foundations. We designed the form to be simple and user-friendly and not take up too much time, knowing how busy you all are. Please share this blog post or GrantAdvisor.org and encourage your networks to write reviews. The more reviews we have on this site, the more useful it will be for all of us.
Foundation colleagues: You may be feeling a little hesitant, but I hope you’ll embrace this tool as a way to get genuine and helpful feedback. Please peruse the site, then send out an email to your grantees asking them to review you on GrantAdvisor. If you encourage them to do it, it’ll make it easier for grantees to do so, and the more reviews you have, the better and more accurate the aggregated feedback will be for you. Also, assign a Key Contact whose job is to regularly check reviews, respond to them, and bring back information to your leadership team. Also, ask other funders to check it out.
Associations of Funders: Many of you have been helping funders to examine power dynamics and be more intentional about getting feedback. Thank you for continuing to do that. Please encourage your funding partners to look into GrantAdvisor as a tool for getting unvarnished truth.
Donors, volunteers, consultants, and other leaders in the sector: Please check out GrantAdvisor and ask the organizations and foundations you work with to get involved. If you’ve worked with foundations before, write reviews.
GrantAdvisor is still in its pilot phase, so there may likely be a glitch here and there. Please test it out and contact admin with any feedback you have about how to make the site better and more helpful to everyone in the field. Right now, marketing efforts are focused on Minnesota and California, but anyone in the US can write reviews, and any foundation with five reviews in any state will go live.
And with that, I am off. The script for this puppet show about the importance of general operating funds is not going to write itself. See you next week. Or sooner…if you know what I mean (wink).
Seriously, though, go write some reviews.
[Update: I was just reading the news about the devastation caused by Harvey. I hope everyone in Houston/Texas is doing OK. Thinking of you all.]
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