Crappy Funding Practices

Submit your Crappy Funding Practice here! 📢 https://lnkd.in/gStX7dBd #crappyfundingpractices

In today’s episode of #CrappyFundingPractices, Foot Locker Foundation (via Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)) offers grants of up to $100,000 for organizations that provide opportunities for youth development, but they refuse to cover any salaries, even while requiring the org to have full-time staff. @Foot Locker. Honey. No. Who do you think delivers the programs? Let’s think this through. Say we spend $100,000 on power tools, meditation cushions, and workbooks. Do we drop the supplies in the parking lot and let the youth teach themselves carpentry / meditation / financial literacy? Or let’s say our salaries and overhead cost $500,000 to deliver a quality program using those supplies. Where are those funds supposed to come from? Maybe from our [sarcasm font] many funders who are happy to pay for nothing but salaries and overhead? Or do we decline funding that comes with these ridiculous restrictions because it costs us more than it provides? Foot Locker – and all of you other funders we haven’t tracked down yet – with these restrictions you are only paying a fraction of the cost borne by organizations to deliver your programs. You can do so much better. Are you running away from an unreasonable funder? Tell us about it here: https://lnkd.in/eHcGHWrp

🏅 Welcome to the Grant Application Olympics! 🏅 🎉 The race is on, folks! Ready, set, APPLY! 🎉 Ever dreamed of being an Olympic athlete? Well, here's your chance! 🏃♂️💨 SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS WISH BOOK FUND INC has taken grant applications to a whole new level. Forget about thoughtful proposals and detailed plans. This year, it's all about SPEED! ⏱️ Applications opened at 8 a.m. on July 29, and the "competition" closed once they hit 150 applications. 🎯 Because who needs time to thoughtfully articulate their mission when you can just dash to the finish line, right? 🏃♀️🏃♂️🏃♂️ Here's how to prepare: - Stretch those fingers. You don't want to cramp up midway through the application. - Hydrate. It's important to stay refreshed while you're racing against time. - Warm up your keyboard. This is a sprint, not a marathon! Or, as Mercury News Wish Book suggests, “For quicker submissions, applicants should familiarize themselves with the questions in the application form below AND the requirements listed in the Grants page BEFORE the July 29 opening.” Remember, folks, it's not about the quality of your work or the impact of your project. It's about how fast you can hit "submit." May the fastest typist win! 🥇💻 Funders, do better. Nonprofits deserve a fair chance, not a race against the clock. Know other funders who treat grant applicants like Olympic athletes? Share your stories of similarly bad funding practices with us here: https://lnkd.in/gStX7dBd.

❤️ Today we announce the first funder (that we know of) who changed their process in response to feedback they received here at CFP! 🙌(https://lnkd.in/eZ_bh-ei)   Internet Society Foundation has simplified their budget form and requirements, and acknowledged that their previous requirements were unnecessary. We so appreciate this reflection and revision. Thank you for leaving your grantees more time for their missions! 😍 May this be the first of many! ⏩ 💯 Funders, if you’ve taken feedback seriously and have made changes, we’d love to hear about it! 📣 https://lnkd.in/eQBwVgsP

Thanks for the shout-out, Vu Le! We're right there with you - we prioritize justice over "niceness" when it comes to philanthropy. "Has the “nice” approach been effective?  If all it took was some random person calling up a funder on the phone and that funder magically stops whatever harmful practice they’ve been doing, or if all it took was an email to an organization to tell them they’ve been perpetuating inequity and they’d say “Oh goodness, thank you kind stranger, we’ll adopt a policy to disclose salary on all our job postings from now on!,” movements like CFP and HWU [Home for Wingless Unicorns] wouldn’t have needed to be formed in the first place. But “being nice” and speaking with a soothing voice hasn’t worked.... So we need to try some new approaches, including being more assertive and calling orgs out publicly by name."

Abolish performative “Awards!” 🏆⛔ SAX hosts an event offering organizations a "chance to win $20,000." 🎲🎲 This is a #CrappyFundingPractice that perpetuates a "Hunger Games" dynamic. Funding should be about building sustained partnerships, not forcing groups to compete in a high-stakes game for survival. Your unrestricted Founders’ Award is a lovely idea! But our contacts shared that they had to send an executive to an event, invest time and travel costs, and listen to a pitch for all of SAX’s services, all without knowing what the outcome would be. 🫰This approach creates pressure to perform in public and places unnecessary burdens and stress on organizations already working tirelessly to make an impact. We strongly recommend shifting away from this harmful model and providing the funds without imposing these arbitrary hoops. Organizations know what they need. They shouldn’t have to compete like beauty contestants. We can all relate to this tired kitty — would you ask her to juggle in exchange for snacks? 🙀 Looking forward to funding practices that are less about the grantor and more about the grantee. ➡️Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e7x9HxRS Are #CrappyFundingPractices interrupting your naps? We want to hear about them: https://lnkd.in/epwEMUdb

The #CrappyFundingPractices community is dreaming of a future where only awesome funders exist, and #CrappyFundingPractices are a thing of the past. Imagine a world with an equitable spread of resources—where we might not even need foundations anymore. One day! 🤩 Until then, nonprofits and fundraisers, we invite you to: 👎Call out #CrappyFundingPractices - Submit here: https://lnkd.in/epwEMUdb.  👍Celebrate awesome funding practices-  Submit here: https://lnkd.in/eTuEbfeu 💡 Funders: We invite you to improve your practices in response to our posts and the many constructive suggestions that can be found in the comments. We are interested in transparency and change, so we won’t be having private conversations with you. We do look forward to raising awareness when you develop better practices, though! 📢

Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund (www.apcfund.org), it’s time for an urgent update to your grantmaking and application processes—and while you’re at it, a power analysis might be in order. Not supporting general operations or administrative overhead, excluding publicly funded organizations, and requiring applicants to submit online and ALSO print seven (7!) copies for delivery? That’s not just unrealistic, it’s wasteful and outdated. 🖨 And let’s not even start on the power dynamics at play here. We know you may have legal requirements, but continuing the Foundation “in perpetuity” raises serious questions about why it’s more important for the foundation to continue than for the issue it’s addressing to be eliminated. Philanthropy should never be about self-preservation but about moving funding to the communities that need it most. Join us in the 21st century…. It’s nice here. Why do funded programs need to wait three (3!) years to reapply? And those rejected need to wait until “the second calendar year following a denial.” Further, general operating costs and overhead are fundamental and should be supported by all funders; refusing to do so isn’t just poor practice, it’s downright harmful. And for crying out loud, enough with the printing! Why the extra work? Do you hate trees? 😞🌳😞 You already required an online submission. Read it online, or, if you must, print it yourself. Are you not at all fine with #CrappyFundingPractices? We’re listening! 📢 https://lnkd.in/eMaXk6ZS

Giving Joy Grants, we’re really not feeling it.  In fact, we call #CrappyFundingPractices! Your grant maximum is $500, and it’s internationally competitive, attracting over 4,000 applications to award only 6 grants. If each organization spent $100 in staff time to apply – we assume it’s more – that’s a $400,000 loss to the sector. Where’s the joy in that? 😢 We’re told organizations who are awarded a grant will receive funds “in installments”! And that’s after a 6-question application and a budget that requires an itemized list of expenses. We had two submitters draw our attention to you, Giving Joy, one in the U.S. and one in India. So we’re getting the message that folks on both sides of the globe are rolling their eyes at these 6 teeny grants. We’re seeing serious irony in your tagline: "If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough." Our dreams are fine – they include grants that are large enough to warrant the cost of applying. And it’s your awards that aren't big enough. Do better. Do you dream of an end to #CrappyFundingPractices? Tell us which funding practices you find to be nightmarish: https://lnkd.in/gStX7dBd.

Good morning, Friends! We hate to interrupt a quiet week with a practice we find loathsome, but here we are. We are calling out the Harnish Foundation (www.harnishfoundation.org), but tbh, way too many funders seem to be in this philanthropy business for the fame and glory. Yeah, we don’t get it, either. What do y’all make of a 3-question application with one entire question titled “Promotion of donation”? “Describe if and how you plan to promote the proposed donation in your community.  Is there an opportunity for “naming rights” with this donation?”  That “IF” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The overwhelming implication is that to receive funding you must publicize their award. Well, we hope this post qualifies as public recognition! 🥁🥳 Harnish isn’t done being difficult, though. Their application is a pdf that must be downloaded and filled in - so you must either reproduce their form (with the logo on top) or… use a typewriter? (DM us if you need to know what a typewriter is.) And finally, our submitter had their proposal declined with a message that indicated the funding would be going to organizations with “lesser reliance on public funds.” Because, of course, nonprofits should be penalized for accepting government funds when that’s often the only funding available. Seems like a circular problem to us. 😵💫 We’d be “lion” if we said we don't hate #CrappyFundingPractices. Let us know about the ones you’ve hunted down! 📢 https://lnkd.in/eMaXk6ZS