Finding Your Foundation Match

I’m waiting for the app that plays matchmaker between foundations and potential grantees. Imagine. Enter your organization’s profile (once!), and an algorithm selects like-minded funders, who swipe left if they’re uninterested and right if they want to learn more. You, too, get to choose which foundations meet your own criteria. A foundation won’t fund administrative costs? Next….

We need a platform with authenticated profiles from users seeking long-term relationships.

Until that ideal app arrives (if you can build it, I’ll help you find funding!), it’s worth reminding ourselves of some less traditional options that seed foundation relationships.

Six Degrees of…Somebody

If yours is an organization in the education, civil rights, human services, or other heavily grant-funded discipline, you want a board member or two who is plugged into the foundation scene. If that is not your current reality, consider your board’s second-order network.

Development colleague, “Jay,” told me that “Elle,” his board chair, knew the head of a peer organization. Elle led Jay to this industry leader, and the latter two met virtually. The meeting’s explicit purpose was to help Jay grow his nonprofit’s network. Jay came away with three introductions, one being a foundation program officer.

Jay met the program officer over Zoom and subsequently submitted a letter of intent. Then came a second meeting and request for a full proposal. A $100,000 grant arrived soon after. As thrilled as he is with this new relationship, Jay sees it as a starting point.

This model relies on clear expectations and earned trust with your board members, so that they confidently share with you their contact lists. Don’t forget to advocate for board candidates whose networks reflect your most significant supporters.

A Match Made in a Hilton

If your nonprofit is adept at innovation or has a model that’s ready to scale, it’s worth seeking out gatherings of funders who are keen on taking the journey with you. One pioneer in major grants matchmaking is the Clinton Global Initiative. CGI went on hiatus in 2016 but is back this year.

Think your organization is too small to play with some of the A-listers in the CGI pool? Greg Milne, CEO of the Initiative welcomes the diversity, “CGI always looks to find the synergies between all partners irrespective of size or sector that make sense and can be mutually beneficial.” If you don’t attend next week’s event, you might explore the new year-round format.

What makes this model powerful is its emphasis on “commitments to action.” A handshake and exchange of business cards is not the point. Organizers want participants to walk away with plans to work together.

CGI puts big thinkers and doers in a room with big philanthropies. It’s a model our sector could use in varied forms: by geography, by discipline, by nonprofit size or structure. Events like this necessarily require vetting, lest the poor foundation staff get trampled by the masses. Parameters are fine. If funders really want trust-based relationships, they need new formats to engage a full range of voices.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

More CGI-like gatherings need not be fantasy. Other events put foundations, corporate partners, and change makers in the same room, though they are rarely designed with matchmaking as the primary function. Third sector umbrella organizations, philanthropy advisories, and community foundations all have the ability—perhaps the responsibility—to convene grant seekers and grant makers.

What about the many grant maker affinity groups in, say education or health? Sure, those are designed to meet funders’ needs. But, if they can’t create occasional, authentic opportunities for funders to hear from a range of leaders they ultimately serve, don’t they perpetuate the insular world that foundations supposedly want to tear down?

We all have a role to play. Whether your nonprofit is well connected and thriving or struggling to make payroll, foundations need to hear from all of us. Ask the funders you’re close to whether they’d be open to either making introductions for you or partnering to convene other like-minded funders and nonprofits. Maybe your event will have a no-ask policy. Maybe you will create an agenda that allows nonprofits and foundations to discuss current challenges. Do what feels necessary to make the gathering natural and engaging. You come out a winner regardless for your show of leadership.

Make Me a Match

The ideas here require reconsideration of norms and more work for the overworked. They also stand to bring more equality and experimentation to a field that could use them both.

Foundations have a responsibility to make the funding process as easy on applicants as possible. They can demand quality while also breaking down some of the obstacles nonprofits face before they can even begin to prove their value. Their obligation goes beyond making more unrestricted grants.

I’ve read that romantic relationships originate nearly equally in one of three ways: via peer introductions, in-person gatherings, or online. For the sake of the many nonprofits I admire, it’s time to rely less on cold calling foundations and create a similar spread of gently vetted matchmaking options. Here’s hoping we find that balance through our nonprofits’ networks, convenings, and my dream app.