Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) is a national membership association of foundations concerned with improving philanthropic strategy and practice. Coinciding with their national conference, GEO released “Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter?: A national study of philanthropy,” a report based on the results of a 2011 survey of 370 foundations. “Is Grantmaking Getting Smarter?” weighs the recent challenges nonprofits face against foundations’ responses, shown through their grantmaking practices.
The last survey GEO conducted (in 2008) found a disconnect between nonprofit needs and funder practices. This discovery led to a few key recommendations:
- Provide flexible funding – at steady amounts every year
- Engage with stakeholders – which involves soliciting feedback from grantees
- Find ways to leverage limited resources – including collaborations with other funders
GEO’s most recent (2011) survey was a follow-up with foundations to measure how well they were implementing these recommendations. Although there were no dramatic changes, there was hardly any deviation – especially significant in recent turbulent economic times. Funders reported:
- Reducing grantmaking turnaround time by 30 days
- Sticking to general-operating and capacity-building support grants (mostly flexible unrestricted funds that can be applied towards operations, programs, or services)
- Engaging with stakeholders, and basing funding around stakeholder recommendations (which led to multiyear, general operating and capacity-building support – shown to improve sustainability)
While not especially groundbreaking news, this report does catalog a shift from the rigid, limited, standalone practices that have characterized grantmaking in years past.
Through this report, GEO contends that general operating support is not going away, which is true if we at the Center for Arab American Philanthropy have anything to say about it. Our latest grant round awarded 12 grassroots nonprofits with general operating support – which has provided these organizations with much-needed flexibility in shaky economic times. We are currently in the midst of our 2012 grant review process; to learn more about our grantmaking, please visit our website.
- Debunking Grant Delusions (Philanthropy in AAction)
- Getting It Right at the GEO Conference in Seattle (Beth Kanter)
- “Relocalizing” global philanthropy (Philanthropy in AAction)
Photo courtesy Terrence Tak-Shing Tam