Last summer, I read Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, having bought my copy in a New Hampshire bookstore, where the owner just happened to mention, “This book should be in the hands of every high school student in New Hampshire.” Halfway through the book, I understood what she meant... Read More
When should a foundation rescind a grant? How is the rescission accomplished? The obvious answer to the first question is that a funder should rescind a grant when the grantee fails to use the grant funds for the purposes for which the grant was made. Most commonly, such failure is because the grantee’s need for... Read More
My husband and I created The O’Grady Foundation and, after some trial and error, agreed to focus our funding on the arts in our New York City area. Although we support several major arts and cultural institutions in our region, we concentrate our efforts on smaller institutions with annual budgets of $3 million or less.... Read More
If your foundation encounters an organization struggling with its operations, how can you say no—declining or not renewing a grant—in a way that makes a difference? For our small family foundation, the facts were clear. Getting to those facts had not been easy: The board of directors of the nonprofit we were funding had not... Read More
This article suggests that it will be useful for foundations to think about investment manager due diligence in a different conceptual framework than typically has been used in the past. The typical framework has had two major elements: Investment due diligence Operational due diligence This article suggests that investors, including foundations, will be well-served by... Read More
“Too often as funders, we force our grantees to embark on new projects because that’s what we’re willing to fund,” says Exponent Philanthropy member Judy Peckham of the Conrad and Virginia Klee Foundation in Binghamton, NY. “Yet, organizations with good core programs often desperately need funds for administrative costs to keep those programs strong. If... Read More
