CEOs and program staff believe that providing assistance beyond the grant is important both for the achievement of their goals and those of their grantees. Yet few know whether the assistance they provide to those grantees is proving helpful. In that context, the small proportion who conduct a formal needs assessment to determine what type of assistance to provide grantees is surprising – only three percent of program staff report always doing so.
Our report More than Money: Making a Difference Beyond the Grant explored which factors program staff consider when making decisions about what assistance to provide to grantees. We asked program officers at foundations with $100 million or more in assets to rate on a scale of 1 (Not a significant consideration) to 7 (Significant consideration) the extent to which they considered fourteen different factors when deciding what type(s) of assistance beyond the grant check to provide to a grantee.
With data from 103 respondents, we learned that the number one factor in decisions about what type of nonmonetary assistance to give is a request from the grantee for a specific type of aid. Program staff members also give significant consideration to their confidence that a grantee will make the most of the assistance being provided. Their own perception of what grantees need factored third in this list – 63 percent say this is an important consideration.
Near the other end of the spectrum, relatively few program officers factored in information about assistance that the grantee is already receiving from other funders, the length of time they had been funding a grantee, the size of grant they provided, or the budget of the grantee organization receiving the assistance.
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What are the attitudes and behaviors related to providing assistance beyond the grant at large foundations? For a fuller exploration of nonmonetary assistance, see the report More Than Money: Making a Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant written by Ellie Buteau, Ph.D., Phil Buchanan, Cassie Bolanos, Andrea Brock, and Kelly Chang.
Ellie Buteau is Vice President – Research at the Center for Effective Philanthropy
