Power Imbalance
Grantees feel power imbalances keenly, including when funders rely on staff more than grantees to understand a social impact field, when they create space for funder questions but not grantee feedback, or when they evaluate grantees without asking them to evaluate program staff. Most painfully, funders can pause programs for review when new leadership arrives, without considering the impact on grantee funding cycles. Flexible funding conveys trust, and multiyear funding, say grantees, gives them years between asks to interact as partners and raise issues of power sharing.
Data Highlight
Nonprofit leaders rated funders’ “challenges understanding the field” as the number three barrier to more flexible grants (Accelerating Equitable Grantmaking Survey, MilwayPLUS, November 2021, n=30).
Additional Resources
“Power Moves—Ignite the Power of Your Philanthropy for Equity and Justice,” National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy tool kit to help foundations discover how well they are building and sharing power for maximum social impact
“Funder Practices for Transformative Partnership,” Muso’s recommendations for funders that seek transformative relationships and impact
“Building a Trust-Based Philanthropy to Shift Power Back to Communities,” SSIR article about building and demonstrating a trust-based culture, investing in community leadership capacity-building, and opening up decision-making and information-sharing structures
“Building Long-Term Partnerships with Nonprofits to Scale Impact,” Philanthropy News Digest article on lessons learned from sustained funding relationships
Seven Habits of Excellent Work with Grantees, Hewlett Foundation guide for foundation staff to help them create strong, mutually respectful and highly productive relationships with grantees
Getting Started:
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Consider putting community members or other proximate stakeholders on the board. Ensure that strategy refreshes are not disruptive to grantees, i.e., by giving one-year bridge grants. Ask before planning or implementing strategy refreshes whether that will cause disruption to grantees.
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Take time each month to listen to grantees. Reduce power imbalances. In addition, take the money out of the room by also seeking grantee feedback in ways that are anonymous or facilitated by others. Enlist grantees to redistribute funds to smaller and/or more diverse groups or community members. Work through NCRP’s Sharing Power exercises with your staff.
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Show curiosity about and support for a grantee’s entire organization and concerns, not just the parts that relate to the foundation’s strategy and goals. Listen as much as you talk to grantees. (See Seven Habits of Excellent Work with Grantees.)
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Get one of your multi-year, flexible funders to share their experience with others; invite funders to meet with you as a group to discuss long-term objectives (e.g., CEO Sixto Cancel of Think of Us routinely does this). Be candid at the outset about what helps and hinders.