Grants

There seems to be a pervasive lack of starting with trust between funders and nonprofits, and it’s affecting all of us and our abilities to survive and do our work. The default starting relationship between funders and nonprofits is one of suspicion of the latter by the former, which leads to funders enacting policies and…

Many foundations now want you to send a letter of inquiry rather than a full grant proposal when first asking for grant money. Some foundations find that it is faster to make that first cut of possible funding ideas if they are just looking at a two- to three-page letter rather than a full proposal…

During a site visit, a foundation trustee remarked half-jokingly to me, “We hate development people—we like to talk to the program staff.” I responded that, yes, I did too. It was the only way for me to learn and effectively write about our programming. Then I got to thinking about the whole divide between program staff and fundraisers...

The MacArthur Foundation last week announced its 2016 MacArthur Fellows, the annual recipients of the organization's five-year "Genius" grants. Among the 23 winners? Two nonprofit leaders. Ahilan Arulanantham, director of advocacy and legal director of American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and José Quiñonez, founder and CEO of Mission Asset Fund, will receive $625,000 grants as part of the fellowship...

For 21 years, Laurence Pagnoni has worked with and developed strategy for hundreds of nonprofits seeking U.S. foundation support. His work with one such agency, Sightsavers, and its desire to grow its U.S. foundation support, is worth closer examination...

It’s a funny and, sometimes, very uncomfortable thing. I am talking about feeling and expressing emotion. On one side, there are people who are in a constant state of tears and drama, and, on the other side, there are those who find it very difficult to express any kind of emotion. You’ve seen both types of people, and you know what it all means...

Months after he was supposed to give away more than $100,000 for college scholarships, Milo Yiannopoulos said all of the money is still sitting in his bank account. The Breitbart editor and professional political agitator (recently banned from Twitter for harassment) came under fire this week as allegations surfaced that his charity, which would provide…

A mega-grant from a mega-foundation always seems like the answer to your prayers, right? Not quite. The truth is, foundation giving plays a smaller role than you probably think. In fact, in terms of the entire philanthropic pie, foundation funding accounts for a mere 16 percent...

Each year, more than 87,000 U.S. foundations make grants to help improve their communities, their nation and their world. With more than $800 billion of foundation assets, these annual grants total more than $56 billion—doing a lot of good. Each year, however, nearly $750 billion remains in endowments—where it usually is invested for the single bottom…

MacArthur Foundation, best known for its "Genius" grants, on Thursday announced a competition that will award $100 million to a single proposal that helps solve a "critical problem affecting people, places or the planet." Called 100&Change, the competition will be held once every three years and is open to nonprofit and for-profit organizations in the U.S. and internationally...