Friday’s Thoughts: “…there is plenty left to do…”

Posted on October 26, 2012. By Jeff Raderstrong.

From the inside, well-meaning foundation leaders and staff try to make things easier. They streamline the process… They assess themselves on their responsiveness to applicants and make real efforts to be more available, visible, and helpful.

Wouldn’t it be better if the process were less adversarial? If foundation application procedures were designed to help them find the right projects and help applicants find the funding they need (even if it’s not going to be from that foundation?) Or if applicants could get guidance and help to improve their proposals? …

Foundations have made big strides toward being more inviting – (open grantmaking challenges reflect the growing awareness that the best ideas may come from the unlikeliest places.) But there is plenty left to do to get to the place where foundations and nonprofits are working together – from idea generation through proposal, implementation and assessment – to actually solve problems.


-Lucy Berholz, “Trying to Solve Problems,” 8/30/2012 

  • http://twitter.com/susiecambria Susie Cambria

    Jeff, thanks for sharing this. I completely agree. I think the challenge is with the four words “to actually solve problems.” I’m not sure that many folks, nonprofits want to do that. If they did, their behavior would be different.

    • http://www.unsectored.net Jeff Raderstrong

      Thanks for reading, Susie. I think that most people probably do want to solve problems as their core motivation, it’s just that most don’t know the best ways to go about doing that. It goes back to the common axiom–good intentions are not enough.