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| Re: The Conundrum's Conundrum
Posted by Tony Poderis   on 2/5/2009, 9:03 am, in reply to "The Conundrum's Conundrum"
VIP Poster
You are frustrated by the exclusions from funding support to your project, especially the "Applications Not Accepted," "Contributes Only to Preselected Organizations," and "No Grants To Individuals" exclusions.
Other than overcoming the “trend” downward, relative to the economy and its impact on grantors’ available funds, there has been no change---no trend---over many decades of time regarding those three exclusions. Sure, they have less money today with the drop in portfolio value, but many foundations have been operating with those same preclusion for as long as I have been in the profession, and well before.
Even when applications are accepted, and are not fixed on preselected organizations, the hurdles are still high and many, regarding what they will fund and what they will not fund. Thus, we have more and more formidable exclusions when we do not meet the grantors’ needs in the first place. Our Mission---our reason for being--- many times is not reason enough to get their money.
And I have rarely seen a private granting foundation give money to an individual, no matter the integrity of the individual, how worthy the project, or how impressive the fiscal sponsor.
You know all of that, of course. And you also know that of all the money given to charity year after year, about 85% comes from individuals. Only about 4% from foundations.
Adding to your frustration, the point I am making is that your problem is not going to go away any time soon when it comes to finding a reasonably sure path to foundation funding clarity and the type of communication you expect when it comes to having what foundations do to be an open book. So, don’t put aside the Foundation Center’s Directory. It’s about the only good open line of communication you will find about granting foundations---other than slogging and dogged targeting and cultivating of the foundations which seem the most likely to support what you do.
Why is so hard to get to know some foundations and to have them be more receptive to our needs? It’s not because they are unfair. For one thing, they are called private foundations for good reason. They are exactly as described. Private. There is no “institutional bias” when it comes to how and when they want to give their own money away. It’s their business.
I think that what you see as project worthiness being far behind organization name recognition for the getting of grants, is generally not the case.
As Director of Development of The Cleveland Orchestra for twenty years, you would think that our “marquee” organization was one of the type you described as being favored over lesser causes. In far more instances than I can count, the opposite was true. When we asked---even protested---why we were not favored with grants, the foundation officials would say, in terms along these lines, “The organizations we are giving the money to are not as good at fund-raising as the Orchestra. We know you can get what you need elsewhere.” How’s that for an exclusion?
The fact is that most granting foundations simply do not have the resources---staff, for starters---to fund most small projects and organizations or individuals. They operate with low overhead. They generally keep from making small grants to organizations in their community, thus a good number of small community organizations are excluded in the first place from receiving grants.
You ask for fairness from foundations as if they are somehow bound together, that they have shared efficiencies---or that they are efficient unto themselves. The fact is that each grantor is an entity unto itself, and operates in a totally independent way. There is no collective efficiency to be found and so they operate in greatly disparate fashion. They are not so much unfair, as they are unfettered.
Take heart. I know it’s tough being alone. Drain everything you can from the fiscal sponsor. Look to other organizations for the chance that your talents can be folded into what they do. Search for individuals who know you and care about you, or who could care, once they know the good things you do.
Lastly, there is a way to, at times, get around successfully the barriers you described initially regarding the preselect and do not apply situations.
http://members4.boardhost.com/PNDtalk/msg/archive/33138.html
Best fund-raising wishes,
Tony
Tony Poderis
http://www.raise-funds.com
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