We Need to Stop Treating Nonprofits the Way Society Treats Poor People

During a drink with one of my favorite program officers, I brought up some feedback about how onerous her organization's grant-reporting process was. Even though the foundation is really flexible on how the funds can be used, it still asks for exactly how much of each line item the foundation pays for. And its line items don’t line up with ours, so we have to spend significant time translating our budget into its budget. And once the report is submitted, it affects what we report to other foundations, leading to a funding sudoku that wastes endless hours of my and my team’s time.

Her response, half-joking and half-serious, was, “When you entered the sector, what were you expecting, cake and ice cream?”