Resources

Results for: Type: “Individual Donors”

Addressing Key Financial Challenges Facing Nonprofits: Five Strategies for Grantmakers

In its report On the Money, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations describes several financial challenges faced by nonprofits: Restrictions on funding—Despite the importance of infrastructure to nonprofits’ success, grantmakers overwhelmingly prefer to support the direct delivery of programs and services. The result is an underinvestment in the infrastructure nonprofits need to sustain and grow, such as... Read More

Scanning the Landscape

How do small foundations scan? For starters, they venture into the community, listen to grantees, talk with community leaders and residents, review publications, and commission research and reports. Foundations have the privilege and opportunity to talk with almost anyone in a community. “We try to keep a pulse on the community and learn of things... Read More

Assessing Start-Up Organizations

A start-up is, simply put, an organization that is relatively new. Typical characteristics of a start-up include a strong commitment to the organization’s mission and to delivering services, a vision driven by the organization’s founder, an informal management infrastructure, a small and homogenous board with many members often performing day-to-day tasks for the organization, and... Read More

Small, Steady Dollars Make a Difference

Created by members of the Andersen family—founders and owners of the Bayport, MN-based Andersen Corporation—the Andersen Foundation’s primary geographic area of focus is the St. Croix Valley, a mix of rural, suburban, and urban communities that spans the Minnesota–Wisconsin border just east of the Twin Cities. We primarily support nonprofits in Washington County in Minnesota... Read More

Awarding Multiyear Grants

Exponent Philanthropy members tell us multiyear grants offer important benefits: Less grantee time and labor to apply and report on grants Less funder time and labor to review applications and reports Greater security for grantees that allows them to look ahead to longer-term goals and plan accordingly A powerful seal of approval that helps grantees... Read More

Streamlining Your Financial Due Diligence

Most funders ask grantees—prospective and current—to customize their budgets and financial information to fit the funder’s requirements. Project Streamline, a collaboration of grantmakers and grantseekers working to improve application and reporting practices, recommends a different way: Make requests for nonstandard information the exception rather than the rule. Consider the real costs to nonprofits of customizing... Read More