Best Of

Good afternoon! The St. Louis Philanthropic Organization (SLPO) awards grants of up to $10,000 to support programs that improve the quality of life for St. Louis City residents, allocating an average of $400,000 annually. SLPO is a relatively modest-sized funder, managed with the support of a part-time consultant.

Beginning in 2026, the SLPO Board will, for the first time, consider offering flexible funding/general operating support. This is an important step forward in helping nonprofits remain adaptable, pivot when needed, and direct dollars where they can make the most impact.

To prepare, the Board would like to update our grant application to:

• Add question allowing agencies to indicate if they are requesting flexible funding/general operating support and request a brief description of how the funds may be used.
• Review whether to revise our current budget form or create a new one tailored to this type of funding.

For those of you who already engage in flexible funding or general operating support:

• How do you reflect this in your application process?
• What reporting forms or questions do you ask agencies to complete?

There will be general questions every agency must answer. Following that, I am considering creating a Flexible Funding/General Operating section in the application with questions, and need to determine which of the existing questions they should also answer (e.g., need statement, outcomes, impact, etc.). For those requesting Program Support, they will pretty much response to the current questions, and that section would be named Program Support or something to that effect. It is also important to note that the SLPO has the Basic version of GLM, and I will need to make some modifications to required questions, etc.

If possible, please share examples of your application materials or reporting forms. Your guidance will be greatly appreciated as we navigate this transition. I have attached a copy of our application.

Thank you and have a wonderful day on purpose!

We don't have a written policy, but we have an unspoken policy. We defer for one year when a student asks for deferring. I keep a record of our conversations and as long as it is a reasonable ask we assist the student.

Hi Samantha! I'm not sure why one organization passed and the other didn't, so I don't have a great answer for that part of your question.

For the other part, it sounds like this is coming out of a donor-advised fund. If that's the case, we typically will not make a grant to any organization aside from a 501c3 public charity because of the expenditure responsibility required for other types of organizations. In rare cases, we may approve a grant requiring expenditure responsibility and at that point we have an established process for gathering the needed information and establishing a grant agreement.