Families across the country continue to struggle with the rising cost of food, gas, housing, and more. Even Halloween candy prices were up 13% this year! Even more scary: nonprofits are facing the same inflation pressures—and many of them came into 2022 already facing declines in donations, a cliff in pandemic relief support, workforce shortages,... Read More
When you right-size your application and reporting requirements, you tailor what you ask grantseekers and grantees for when they apply for and report on your grants. This means what you need is proportionate to the grant size, appropriate for the grant type, and reflects any existing relationship with the grantee. Right-sizing considers the concept of... Read More
When foundations have specialized grant applications and reports it imposes a big administrative burden on nonprofits. A nonprofit that receives grants from 20 or 30 foundations—and some get funding from many more—spends its resources in two major ways: First, it applies for funding from 40, 50 or 60 different foundations, each requiring a different application,... Read More
A little over 30 years ago, Pro Football Hall of Famer and venture capitalist investor Ronnie Lott and his wife Karen founded All Stars Helping Kids. Ronnie modeled his philanthropic efforts on the lessons he learned playing football and investing in technology starts-up. Much like how venture capitalists invest in startups, All Stars invests in... Read More
In 1993, well before I left my job as CEO of Applied Materials, my wife Becky and I started our family foundation. Giving brings us joy. At the same time, we thought giving locally was important in Silicon Valley, where great need exists alongside great wealth. Becky and I wanted to identify good nonprofits and... Read More
Through open communication and detailed grant guidelines, you can build good relationships with potential partners from the start. At the same time, you can help other grantseekers move to different funding sources quickly. Remember, though, these are just guidelines. If you want to make a grant outside of those stated guidelines, you can certainly do... Read More