Despite these benefits, many funders focus exclusively on supporting regranting organisations’ outgoing grants rather than funding the operational infrastructure that enables these organisations to provide holistic support.
Reading this post as someone not really in the animal-advocacy or grantmaking spaces, this sentence triggers the question: why do funders take that stance?[1]
Presumably they have some reason for thinking the grantmaking functions are above their bar but the holistic support functions are not. Without knowing their rationale, it is difficult to evaluate what is functionally an implied response to that rationale. Advocacy pieces are fine, but if I were considering a donation then I would want to be confident I understood both sides of the dispute rather than dismissing the views of “many funders” without an attempt at understanding them.
(Of course, if the funders won’t tell you what the rationale is, then there’s not much you can do to respond!)
It’s not clear where operational costs directly and essentially related to grantmaking (e.g., evaluating grants, accounting, etc.) fall into the dichotomy. I’ll assume for now that operational costs directly and essentially related to grantmaking are in the same category as the grants themselves.
Thanks for the question and feedback Jason, that’s a point well taken! I think my main response is that this is less of a dispute, and more of simply a strategy that, from my perspective, lacks awareness and understanding across the effective animal advocacy movements, and I imagine across other movements as well though I’d love to hear from folks in EA but non-EAA movements.
We do see a mix of behaviors from grantmakers—some who solely fund grants, and some who fund both grants and the associated program support. For those who only fund grants, I think it’s a mix of rationale. Some grantmakers have specific grantmaking priorities to, say, direct funding to a particular region of the world, and they find our grants to be an efficient way to do that. We’re definitely still grateful for that support, and it is highly impactful. Some grantmakers who solely fund grants I think are simply not aware of all that goes into making those grants successful, and those are conversations we try to have with funders when we’re able. But your comment is a good reminder to me as a fundraiser to gain a deeper understanding of that behavior.
I think this post was aimed less at our existing funders who may or may not be funding grant program support, and more at other funders who might be looking for ways to create efficiencies in their funding strategy and maximize impact. But that may not have totally come across, so again thanks for the points here!
Reading this post as someone not really in the animal-advocacy or grantmaking spaces, this sentence triggers the question: why do funders take that stance?[1]
Presumably they have some reason for thinking the grantmaking functions are above their bar but the holistic support functions are not. Without knowing their rationale, it is difficult to evaluate what is functionally an implied response to that rationale. Advocacy pieces are fine, but if I were considering a donation then I would want to be confident I understood both sides of the dispute rather than dismissing the views of “many funders” without an attempt at understanding them.
(Of course, if the funders won’t tell you what the rationale is, then there’s not much you can do to respond!)
It’s not clear where operational costs directly and essentially related to grantmaking (e.g., evaluating grants, accounting, etc.) fall into the dichotomy. I’ll assume for now that operational costs directly and essentially related to grantmaking are in the same category as the grants themselves.
Thanks for the question and feedback Jason, that’s a point well taken! I think my main response is that this is less of a dispute, and more of simply a strategy that, from my perspective, lacks awareness and understanding across the effective animal advocacy movements, and I imagine across other movements as well though I’d love to hear from folks in EA but non-EAA movements.
We do see a mix of behaviors from grantmakers—some who solely fund grants, and some who fund both grants and the associated program support. For those who only fund grants, I think it’s a mix of rationale. Some grantmakers have specific grantmaking priorities to, say, direct funding to a particular region of the world, and they find our grants to be an efficient way to do that. We’re definitely still grateful for that support, and it is highly impactful. Some grantmakers who solely fund grants I think are simply not aware of all that goes into making those grants successful, and those are conversations we try to have with funders when we’re able. But your comment is a good reminder to me as a fundraiser to gain a deeper understanding of that behavior.
I think this post was aimed less at our existing funders who may or may not be funding grant program support, and more at other funders who might be looking for ways to create efficiencies in their funding strategy and maximize impact. But that may not have totally come across, so again thanks for the points here!