Partial Funding Question
We are exploring adding a question to our grant application that asks applicants if they would be able to accept/complete their project/program with partial funding. We often partially fund applications and would like to be more transparent up front with applicants. I am struggling to come up with appropriate verbiage to relay this on an application. Has anyone asked a similar question, and would you be willing to share?
Thank you in advance :)
Answers
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Hi @KalaPedersen! Back in my community foundation days, we frequently partially funded after school youth programs in order to "spread the wealth" across as many projects as possible. The idea being that some money was better than no money!
I believe we had a checkbox on the application that said something along the lines of "If it is decided our grant request cannot be fully funded as outlined in our proposal, we wish to NOT be considered for funding at this time." I think that checkbox was only checked once, for a project that had a a very specific timeline.
Hope that helps. I'm sure other Compass members have additional examples!
Kara Adams, M.Ed., CAE (she/her/hers)|Community Manager|kara.adams@foundant.com
Headquartered: Bozeman, MT| Remote Location: Chicago, IL | Direct: 312-802-1374 |www.foundant.com|
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We have not included a question like this on our applications, but our Trustees will sometimes ask a similar question at site visits. It's usually something to the effect of: If our foundation was unable to fully fund your grant request, would you be able to obtain additional funding elsewhere, or modify the program/project so that it can still move forward? It's been a good conversation starter when done in person. It gives applicants an opportunity to say "Well, with $X, we could accomplish this, this, and this. However, with $Y, we could also do this, this, and this."
Another question a former Trustee used to ask was, "What is something you're constantly in need of, that typical grants don't support?" For example, one grantee who provided health services to low-income county residents said they never seem to have enough (steroid injections?). This Trustee and another of our Trustees ended up giving them $2000 from the Trustee allotment they are allowed to give each year. I like that this shows the Trustees are truly listening.
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We do ask if the grantee might be willing to accept partial funding and if so, what their priority for funding might be. It has been valuable to know when full funding could not be made and to know what they viewed as the greatest need in their proposal.
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