I am obviously biased, since I help Deena administer GRIP—but from what I have seen so far the lack of awareness and the struggle to invest into Ops is quite apparent for someone like me, coming from the for-profit world. Maybe it has to do with the differences of role understanding between VCs vs grant makers. Investors either provide a lot of operational support (e.g. hiring, accounting etc.) themselves or connect their portfolio companies to professional service providers. I am a bit surprised that grant makers don’t seem to do the same, as they also expect e.g. reporting, have identified hiring as a major bottleneck, etc. It should be obvious that less mature back office functions will be an obstacle to maximum effective impact. To flip it around, I’d greatly encourage the leaders of orgs to invest just a bit of time and small amounts into operational processes, systems, HR, templates etc, as it offers great return on impact!
I am obviously biased, since I help Deena administer GRIP—but from what I have seen so far the lack of awareness and the struggle to invest into Ops is quite apparent for someone like me, coming from the for-profit world.
Maybe it has to do with the differences of role understanding between VCs vs grant makers. Investors either provide a lot of operational support (e.g. hiring, accounting etc.) themselves or connect their portfolio companies to professional service providers.
I am a bit surprised that grant makers don’t seem to do the same, as they also expect e.g. reporting, have identified hiring as a major bottleneck, etc. It should be obvious that less mature back office functions will be an obstacle to maximum effective impact.
To flip it around, I’d greatly encourage the leaders of orgs to invest just a bit of time and small amounts into operational processes, systems, HR, templates etc, as it offers great return on impact!