Roles Grants Managers Play in Strategy Reviews

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I often see misconceptions about the roles of grants managers in a foundation’s strategic journey. When conducting a strategy review, for example, it’s not uncommon to see a grants manager’s role being relegated to that of a report generator—someone who is told “just pull these reports and send me the spreadsheets” or “give me the data, and I’ll do the work.”

Yet, the role of grants managers is actually more complex and involved than many realize, and, despite the progress made, it’s always good to acknowledge and appreciate the many hats they wear throughout a foundation’s strategy lifecycle: planning, execution, and review. At GivingData, I’ve had the enormous pleasure of working with grants managers within foundations of all shapes and sizes, and I’m always amazed by the variety of strategic roles they play within a foundation.

Two examples that come to mind emerged during conversations I had at PEAK-hosted webinars. The first was with Abigail Osei, assistant vice president of The Starr Foundation, who discussed how she plays the role of analyst and storyteller in strategy reviews.

The second was a conversation I had last year with Richelle Pittella and Allison Gister of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, where they described a project they undertook to analyze and improve turnaround times in their grantmaking activities and how their analysis and fact-finding resulted in significant process improvements and the creation of a methodology to evaluate grantmaking data across the foundation’s programs.

Grants managers are analysts and storytellers

In my conversation with Osei, we used Candid’s Roles@Work cards to identify all the roles that grants managers play in various stages of the strategy lifecycle. The Starr Foundation is a lean foundation, and it’s safe to say that it would take more than just one article to look over every role Osei picked, but one thing I found interesting was the selection of the analyst and storyteller roles in strategy reviews.

“At the end of a [strategy lifecycle], I’m not just going to provide the Excel sheet,” Osei said. “If you ask me for a report, I’m going to think deeper. What are you trying to get out of these numbers?”

Osei’s role as the analyst and storyteller during the strategy review is critical because it’s easy to get lost in the numbers if a grants manager only provides the raw data without an understanding of the history of the relationship with the grantees and the story that the data is telling. Experienced grants managers typically have more contextual information that allows them to generate more accurate reports and enables program officers and foundation leaders to better understand and use data in their deliberations.

Grants managers lead the way in strategy analysis

Another example comes from a foundation with a much larger staff, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. While grants managers play similar roles across all foundations, at an organization like the Hilton Foundation, they often need to help their team members get better visibility into grantmaking data across all foundation programs.

In my conversation with the Hilton Foundation last year, we discussed a project their grants management team undertook to identify and address bottlenecks and delays that may be occurring in their grantmaking. After a strategic review of the data, the result was a grantmaking process that better serves the foundation’s values and the creation of a methodology to analyze grants management data across the organization.

“Our grants management team has demonstrated the remarkable insights we can unlock, while empowering the Foundation to enhance and optimize its processes,” said Richelle Pittella, grants training and process manager at the Hilton Foundation.

This fits nicely with the roles Osei identified of the analyst and the storyteller, but also emphasizes the fact-finder role that many grants managers play in so many strategic processes. This refers to the collection, analysis, and sharing of quantitative and qualitative data needed to inform decisions so that they can be grounded in facts rather than perceptions or opinions.

Grants managers are at the forefront of a foundation’s strategy, and as we move into the new year, it’s important to understand and support the many roles they play. Whether it’s program officers acknowledging the importance of storytelling with data, or executives providing grants management teams with the capacity they need to fact-find and analyze, we can all do more in our own roles to acknowledge and celebrate the work grants managers do every day.