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3. Grasp of the context within your funding
strategy.
Beyond separating promising projects
and organizations from risky bets, you must also grasp how a proposed
effort aligns with your overall grantmaking portfolio. You must
ask yourself if a project fits with similar ones already being
funded. Does it complement your foundation’s long-range funding
goals? Is it embarking on an innovative approach with real potential
or relying on proven methodologies aligned with well-documented
best practices? Will it unconsciously duplicate efforts or will
it add to the programmatic and geographic mix? Does the project
serve the demonstrated needs of the target populations you are
committed to serving?
In some foundations and corporate giving
programs, the board might discuss every grant, grappling with
the question of context on a continuing basis. In others, the
board will establish broad funding guidelines, relying on the
staff’s discretion to calculate each project’s suitability.
But in all cases the issue of context remains crucial. In fact,
it is entirely possible for program officers to recognize the
board’s funding priorities, understand the field and still
make poor funding decisions if they are not cognizant of the context.
Let us take an example. Imagine that for
the past decade you have been funding public health programs in
the San Francisco Bay Area. Now your board has decided to expand
programming to Denver, Colorado. You correctly perceive your foundation’s
funding priorities and you have learned a great deal about public
health. But do you know anything about Denver?
In this case, context becomes your first
priority. You must learn about other public health organizations
and projects operating in Denver. You need to identify local problems,
leaders, resources and opportunities—uncovering both alliances
and rivalries. You have to know the history and prior funding
patterns of ongoing efforts. These key contextual questions will
shape your ability to make a good grant recommendation.
4. Ability to synthesize large amounts of
information and communicate its essence to the board.
During the course of your work, you
will necessarily seek out and sort through masses of complex information,
digest it and turn it into short, effective pieces of analytical
writing that justify your grant recommendations. Your board will
read these analyses and then accept or reject them.
This ability to grasp the big picture is
linked to the other skills that we have already mentioned. It
presumes that you have correctly calculated a project’s fit
with your foundation, understood the relevant field and recognized
its contextual implications. It also presumes that you are able
to handle the volume of proposals and manage your time effectively,
especially if you are the only staff member.
5. Ability to communicate.
The clarity of your judgments and the
quality of your recommendations hinge upon your ability to communicate.
Good communication begins with good listening. Over time, you
will need to extend your capacity for paying keen, patient attention
to grantseekers, board members and experts in the field. Without
strong listening skills, you own words will soon degenerate into
pompous pronouncements. You will neglect crucial opportunities
for leaning, and cling too tightly and too long to your own biases.
Beyond Skills
Aside from these five keystone skills,
what else might we say about the successful foundation professional
or volunteer?
In terms of personality, successful grantmakers
tend to be optimistic. They believe that their efforts make a
difference in the world; that is why they come to work each day.
Over time, this innate optimism is reinforced by a clear-eyed
view of their foundation’s performance and their own part
in advancing its mission.
That is not to say program officers should
be entirely credulous. A dose of skepticism enables everybody
to keep a healthy check on inflated expectations. (Now and then,
you may help change the world in important ways, but you will
never achieve its total reformation.) Simply giving away money
is not the point. You want to see the proof of results.
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