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PEAK Grantmaking

5 Tips for Effective Grantmaking, No Matter What the World Throws At You

Throughout the last year alone, the world has experienced change unlike anything we’ve seen before, including significant policy changes in the U.S., devastating natural disasters, and consistent debate over civil liberties. As a result, constituents’ needs are changing, sometimes even faster than your grants cycle. So what can you do to ensure that your foundation and its grantmaking remains relevant, directing resources to areas requiring the most assistance? Make it a priority to enhance your grantmaking cycle, now.

This means looking at the way your foundation awards grants today. What parts of the process do you do because you must? How about areas that you do just because, well, things have always been done that way? You should be treating your grantmaking process like an investment where you want a social return. Think about where you can achieve efficiencies, then direct time saved towards strategizing exactly what you need to do to accomplish your goals. The following are four steps your foundation should consider when looking to enhance your grantmaking cycle:

  1. Streamline your workflows: Map out your process, and take out steps that are not needed!
  2. Automate your process, improve system navigation, and reduce time spent on tasks.
  3. Empower your team to know and do exactly what they need to accomplish.
  4. Enable your team to get the information they need when they need it.

Once you’ve optimized your grantmaking process, it is time to equip your foundation with the data and relationships it needs to stay abreast of the top funding needs, ready to adjust their process as needed when change comes.