How to Disrupt Foundation Power Dynamics

Foundations can make you feel like you’re approaching royalty. As an applicant, you’re on a quest to secure a share of the kingdom’s riches. Even if you don’t view funders as philanthropy’s kings and queens, it’s possible that you’re emitting subordinate vibes.

The pressure is real. You hit “send” on an email or “join” to enter a meeting, and it’s the culmination of months of research, strategy, and networking.

Don’t let your mindset be one of bowing to the monarchy. What funders need are confident partners ready to put grants to good use. This is especially true as the private grants marketplace floods with those seeking to fill federal funding gaps.

Partnership, not Patronage

When nonprofit founders or executives tell me they fear making the ask, I remind them that program officers are distributing funds designated for philanthropy. Unlike individual giving, what’s at stake is not whether money flows but to whom.

Yet, it’s hard to create a strong impression when your words convey reverence: "We're likely asking too much, but we’d appreciate if you might consider..."

Since the pandemic, foundations have hired former nonprofit leaders to fill roles that, for decades, were held by academics. This new generation of funders understands your world firsthand. They appreciate genuine, peer-to-peer interactions.

Foundations are looking for organizations that can help achieve their missions. Approach them as a valuable collaborator rather than an indebted recipient:

• Recognize that funding is a professional agreement, not a favor.

• Lead with a recognition of mutual goals.

• Check your language for excessive qualifiers.

Diplomacy, not Deference

Our sector conditions us to submit to hierarchical dynamics. When we do, we surrender our agency.

In major grants, I regularly see funders try to redirect nonprofits’ long-planned initiatives. It happens via casual suggestions or guidelines’ radical specificity. It’s shameful.

Nonprofits’ passivity doesn’t help. The larger the potential award, the more organizations surrender. They accept a flawed grant and hope for better next year. That kind of calculation rarely delivers.

Major grants are counterproductive when awardees pour them into half-baked ideas. It’s one thing to shift $10,000 away from your planned request. Raise that to $100,000 or $1 million, which I’ve witnessed more than once, and the latter bleeds future funding, staff, and public confidence.

Let’s fortify our nonprofit culture by establishing that funder meetings are business meetings:

• Prepare your leadership for the stakes involved with major grants, especially those that represent large sums and/or significant percentages of your operating budget.

• Know the limits of what stands to take your organization off course.

• Don’t feel pressured to agree to any terms on the spot.

Negotiations, not Neutrality

A chief development officer spent two years cultivating a trendy corporate foundation. When the call came to apply for a major grant, the funder specified it would only cover the outreach costs. The CDO’s nonprofit was planning a large, national initiative, but this generous award far exceeded the project’s marketing needs.

Rather than engage with the foundation in honest dialogue, the CDO inflated the outreach expenses to match the specified grant range. When I later saw the budget, it was clear that the marketing expenses outweighed their importance. The funder must have felt similarly. The proposal was rejected despite the tiny pool of invited applicants.

It’s not easy to push back on a funder you’ve worked hard to engage. Still, this scenario might have ended better with some honest conversations. Perhaps there was more leeway than the CDO read into the guidelines.

The foundation showed generosity in its award sizes and care in its hand-selection of applicants. These angles alone made the prospect of dialogue ripe.

It’s better to get the answers you need and potentially bow out early than risk time and reputation on a substandard proposal. You can’t challenge everything, but take a stand on issues where your nonprofit has the most at stake:

• Know that you can respectfully disagree or redirect conversations.

• View negotiations as collaborative rather than confrontational.

• Challenge unrealistic guidelines, deliverables, or timelines, especially when you are invited to apply or know the funder.

• Seek to discuss misaligned expectations as soon as possible.

Empathy, not Indifference

If I had to name one criterion that captures foundations’ attention, it’s credibility. Funders stake their reputations on the quality of their grantees.

It’s easy to forget that there’s a human being behind the institution.

I’ve seen clients craft eloquent, lengthy emails that were surely read by their author alone. A busy program officer won’t make it to the sixth long paragraph about your nonprofit’s achievements. Scores of similar emails await.

It takes time to craft your messaging well, but it’s worth the effort:

• Write less.

• Learn and respect funders’ communications preferences and internal obstacles.

• Show interest in program officers’ personal commitment to social change.

If you think about foundation staff as overlords, that may well be the dynamic you create. Approach them as partners instead. Behind the guidelines and protocols are humans more interested in synergy than scepters.