No matter what your specific community giving passion might be, translating that passion into a functioning and effective giving program can seem daunting.
It does not have to be.
By keeping a basic set of questions in mind, you can narrow your choices and create a straightforward giving approach. To make this very simple planning tool work, begin by reviewing your existing giving parameters.
Your existing giving “rules.” Your foundation may have some hard-and-fast rules when it comes to grantmaking. For example,
- Is your giving geographically or topically restricted?
- Do you accept unsolicited applications or invite groups to apply for funding, or both?
- Is operating support common or taboo?
- Do you tend to give to new groups each year? Or to several groups, year after year?
- Do you rely upon consensus, a vote or some other decision-making process for giving?
- Is your giving done anonymously? Or, has it courted and received publicity?
If you work with other trustees, you undoubtedly have some unwritten, but sacred habits or realities that must be honestly considered. For example,
- Are certain topical or geographic areas addressed for sentimental or historical, rather than legal, reasons?
- Is there a trustee or group of trustees who by virtue of family position, historical role or other factors exercises more clout than other trustees, and whose support is vital for decisionmaking?
- Are there certain community groups or causes that, because of a past mistake or crisis, probably will never be funded?
- Will certain features (budget, board membership, constituency, etc.) of an application or potential recipient be particularly scrutinized?
All giving, especially family giving, happens within the context of relationships, experiences and accepted practice. Idiosyncrasies are absolutely typical and many times, give family philanthropy its unique personality.
Your task is not necessarily to change or challenge the rules of the road (although you may decide to do so); rather, the answers to these questions simply save you time and energy by establishing the “givens” for your particular “giving.” If nothing else, these “givens” can also narrow the numerous possibilities you face in coming up with a giving plan.
At your own pace, in your own order. Your giving plan will need to provide answers to the following questions: Where? For whom? For what? How long? How much? With whom?
Answer the questions in whatever order makes sense for you.
If you have identified “givens” above, spend your time exploring the questions for which you have no answers. Work with fellow trustees, family members or local leaders to explore the unanswered questions. Plugging in the “givens” helps you narrow your options and apply your time and creativity to the areas that remain open and boundless.
For example, if you had the following “givens”:
- The by-laws demand that giving focus on young children at risk of or living in poverty. (Answered: For whom?)
- The by-laws demand that gifts be made in the low-income neighborhood where your family's business was started. (Answered: Where?)
- You have $20,000 to give. (Answered: How much?)
- You have three questions already answered, so your focus should be on the three other questions: How? With whom? And How long?
Read on for step-by-step help exploring six planning questions.
Designing a giving plan: six questions and so what?
1. WHERE?
Choose a place in which to work. What specific geographical area, neighborhoods or communit(ies) will your giving target?
Possible choices:
- One community or neighborhood
- Several communities within a region
- A sampling of neighborhoods within a city or region
- The city or region as a whole (perhaps with an emphasis on giving to groups that work city-wide or regionally)
As you decide where to give, you will balance your desire for “concentration” versus the desire for “coverage.” Remember, no choice is inherently better than the other. This decision may be dependent upon the needs of your targeted community, the resources you have available or your foundation's mission.
2. FOR WHOM?
Choose the specific challenged or distressed population that your giving will target. This is not the group to which you give your grants, but rather, this is the community or groups of people you hope to ultimately benefit from your giving.
Possible choices:
- One particular at-risk population
- One community or neighborhood
- Several communities within a region
- A sampling of neighborhoods within a city or region
- The city or region as a whole (perhaps with an emphasis on giving to groups that work city-wide or regionally)
3. HOW MUCH?
Choose the staff, board and, of course, financial resources you will commit to your giving program. What resources partners might be brought to the table?
You may have a set amount of dollars, but consider what other resources you can bring to the issue. These might include volunteer time, referrals to successful programs elsewhere, referrals to other funders, introductions to regional leaders, the media, etc.
4. HOW LONG?
Choose the length of time over which you will initiate, sustain and evaluate your giving.
The period of giving to a specific program or community group can obviously influence results. Unfortunately, there is no magic timeframe. Instead, you must balance your resources, including the time you are willing to commit to seeing results, the context in which you give and the details of the recipient's mission or program.
The following categories can help you gauge your timeframe:
- Recipient readiness: The age and capacity (staffing, budget/fundraising, experience, bricks/mortar) of recipient is obviously key to the timeframe of any project. Is this start-up or an established group? The newer the group, the more time it will likely take to achieve results. Time spent on fundraising will postpone the group's programmatic work. Financial readiness, however, will likely make the project more sustainable over time.
- Community readiness: This is truly an instance when community giving is an art , not a science. Data will tell you that a community is in need of a certain program, but whether the community is ready to begin solving problems and achieving positive results is determined by learning as much as you can about the community. Obviously, when a community is truly ready for and engaged in change, you will begin to see results more quickly. On the other hand, if the equally admirable goal of your giving is to help create that readiness, your timeframe should be longer.
Many funders use the term “exit strategy.” This is just another way of saying: before you enter, think about how you will leave. You may be committed to supporting a community group year in and year out. If not, you should avoid making a community group overly dependent upon your support.
Some donors provide three-year awards and reduce the amounts a bit each year with the idea that in years two and three, the recipient will slowly build other funding sources into their budgets. Others provide the full amount for three years up front while explicitly communicating the importance of the grantee's cultivation of other sources for subsequent years.
Exit strategies, however, are not simply about reducing your financial support. As part of your decision to reduce or conclude funding, you might refer or even pay for a consultant to assist a community group in finding support or managing their operations.
5. WITH WHOM?
Choose the groups your giving program will support and work with to achieve results. Determine how will you attract proposals and how you will work with recipients.
- Applicants. Unless you will be operating programs and serving your target community yourself, you will need either to attract proposals from potential recipients or find another way to identify potential recipients. Open, competitive grantmaking processes can be promoted through nonprofit associations and newspapers. Invitations to apply can be presented by you or another trustee, following your study of a community and its leaders. Whatever method you choose, be sure to test the effectiveness of reaching the groups you want to reach through that method.
- Recipients of Funds: Consider the organizations you support to be partners in achieving your mission. Remember, in most cases, the change you hope to see is in your community or in individuals and families. Community groups that receive your support occupy that all-important “intermediary” in your giving plan.
If appropriate, consider partnering with groups that can help your grant recipients succeed. These might include fellow grantmaker(s) or other local partners. Whether you engage in a formal partnership or simply agree to work together on one or another effort, partners can increase your impact by providing a sounding board, additional resources or simply, more hands on deck. Potential partners include:
- Technical Assistance Partners: An external eye can bring objectivity and expertise to your giving and to your grant recipients. Consultants and/or consulting organizations that work with you or with recipients of your funds can provide integral advice and assistance as you design and tweak a giving plan. You and fellow trustees might work with a single consultant to figure out the best way to design a giving program or you might hire a consulting group to bring a number of grant recipients together to track progress and learn new skills.
- Resource Partners: Other foundations, donors or community organizations can help share the budgetary burdens of a project. Resource partners can help attract in-kind donations, media attention and other requirements that you alone cannot cover. Even if you could cover an entire project alone, it is often best not to. Partners help diversify a program's funding and leave it less dependent upon a you as its single source of support.
6. FOR WHAT?
Choose the particular issue area, change or action that would strengthen and enhance your targeted place. Your mission declared the overall purpose of your giving, now it is time to get specific. Take that general statement and what you have learned about your community and imagine ways you can focus your giving.
This Website has been created to help you answer “For what?” On this site, you can explore basic community-building topics and delve into ways to take action.
In need of inspiration? Start by exploring the ways other donors like you have used their community giving to create lasting, positive change in struggling communities. Whether they were able to make long-term, large-scale gifts or a one-time grant, these donors provide stories of success and fulfillment.
The point is: you can do it, too. Explore, focus, get inspired:
Housing
Jobs
Health & Wellness
Schools & Education
Safe & Stable Families
Healthy Environments
You've answered the six questions, in whatever order made sense to you. Now, complete your giving plan with this final question:
SO WHAT?
Choose one or two short-term results and one longer-term result that you hope your giving will achieve.
- Imagine the results you hope to achieve. Are they specific? Are they realistic? Considering the resources, time and approach you have outlined above, can these results be achieved? If not, fine tune your anticipated results. Ending poverty may not be realistic. But, moving ten families to self-sufficiency might be.
- Create an atmosphere of trust and openness. It is absolutely critical that you create an atmosphere in which recipients of feel comfortable telling the truth about their experience and asking for help when they need it. If recipients believe you will impulsively pull the plug, they simply will not tell you when things are not working.
- Designate a method and timeframe to check results. Think carefully about how you will know these results have been achieved. Are there any researchers or organizations currently tracking changes on the issues or communities you are addressing? If not, you may want to use some funds to pay for a nonprofit or for-profit organizations to collect this data. Decide when you (and fellow trustees or family members) will check in on results and try to stick to that schedule. Whether every six months, once a year or at the conclusion of a grant period, share the deadlines with recipients and work with them to analyze progress and make necessary changes.
Finally: remember to learn, learn, learn. Every time you give, you are given the chance to learn something new.
What specific things would you like to learn from your giving? How will you share what you learn with your partners and with the community? How will this inform future giving?
Some basic suggestions and questions can guide your discovery process. Read more about measurement and evaluation.
The preceding guide has been adapted with permission from the 2002 Program Design Circle of the Rural Development Philanthropy Learning Network (RDPLN). RDPLN is a project of the Aspen Institute.
