One of my favorite blogs is Nonprofit AF by Vu Le, former executive director of RVC, a Seattle-based nonprofit that promotes social justice by cultivating leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.
My favorite blog post from Nonprofit AF is “Answers on grant proposals if nonprofits were brutally honest with funders“.
In the post, Vu mentions the imbalance of power between funders and nonprofits, leading to a lack of honest communication and feedback. This often shows up in grant applications for program funding. Vu writes:
“It’s not that we nonprofits lie when writing proposals, it’s just that…we’ve been trained to tell funders exactly what we think y’all want to hear, sugarcoating everything in jargon and BS.”
When I’ve had discovery calls with client organizations who want an evaluation done on a program, we’ve discuss program and evaluation goals. The staff member usually begins with, “Our funder wants…” or “Our funder is looking for…”
This reminds me of an earlier evaluation project I conducted. The program was very popular and attracted participants throughout the city. The executive director wanted to create a trial version of the program that would only accept participants from the same area of the city. The location of the trial program was in an area that’s now very popular, but was up and coming at the time.
I did a few site visits and observed that staff (the ones that worked exclusively at this location and ones that travelled between several program sites) were frustrated with not knowing what resources were in the area as well as who the key players were in order to build community relationships. Though the participants enjoyed not having to travel far to participate in the program, staff felt their time would have been better spent in areas of the city where they already had established relationships.
At some point, I asked the executive director for the rationale for the trial program being in this area. I was told that the funder was interested in having the program there. Staff conducted a community scan of similar programs in the area and discovered that there were none. Being the only program of its kind in the area was great from a funder’s perspective, but that still didn’t lesson the staff’s frustration. When the program ended, I included in my program evaluation report that staff support, staff input on program locations, and aligning staff expertise with funder vision should be prioritized so that staff feel successful in continuing with the trial program.
Since that time, I’ve asked during discovery calls, “Who knows your community more? You or your funder?”
I’ve asked this question in a variety of ways, but the goal is the same: Finding alignment between what funder want and what organizations can actually deliver on based on the needs of their community. Based in Vu’s blog post, nonprofits can be pretty good and saying what a funder wants to hear.
However, there’s a glaring disconnect between what organizations expect funders to want and how funders think they’re coming off to their grantees.
I’ve had to work with evaluation clients to flesh out their evaluation goals to not only address funder needs, but to also include what success looks like for their own program.
As someone who is consider an outsider, I’m aware that it’s easy for me to question these things, and I’ve made myself available to speak to the program officer along with the client so that we’re all on the same accord. Everything from developing the evaluation to idealizing how evaluation findings will be packaged.
In the case of the trial program, “community” is staff as well as program participants, and nonprofits have to be skilled at articulating the needs of both staff and participants to a program officer. I understand this may be difficult, especially when there’s fear of losing funding, but everything moves more smoothly when funders and grantees are in alignment.
Key Takeaway
It’s not enough for funders to strategically call their grantee organizations “funded partners” if nonprofits don’t feel confident in challenging funder expectations. Knowing a grantee’s pain points and areas of success and working with them to articulate this can build alignment between funder expectations and what nonprofits can realistically do within their capacity.
As a nonprofit, you know your community better than your funder, regardless of how much money your funder pours into the communities you serve. When there’s a mutually beneficial, respectful, transparent relationship, power dynamics only gets in the way to the extent that you let it.
Listening, providing feedback, more listening, sharing successes and challenges, and developing actionable steps to address concerns can lessen the disconnect between nonprofits and funders.
Raise Your Voice: How can nonprofits and funders be more aligned with their goals? Share below in the comments section.
