Responsive Grantmaking: Five Ways to Stay Connected to Your Community During Times of Crisis

From funding uncertainty to overlapping natural disasters to the possibility of another global pandemic, the modern grantmaker must be prepared for a variety of challenges. When the Two Ten Footwear Foundation began seeing an increased demand for their financial support as well as a need for financial, legal, and mental health counseling, they knew they had to take a long-term approach while also meeting the short-term needs of their community.   

Responsive grantmaking means assessing and pivoting to address ever-changing needs. To be responsive without burning out their entire staff with a constantly shifting focus, the Two Ten Footwear Foundation looked to their technology and processes to save time and improve efficiency.  

Here are five ways this organization changed to stay connected to its community during times of crisis.  

1. Create Open Feedback Channels  

To respond to the needs of your communities, you need to understand your communities. Your grantees are closest to the people you want to help, so make it easy for them to share updates and what’s really happening in affected communities.  

Build relationships with the leaders closest to your community. This could be identifying community leaders to follow on social channels or signing up for newsletters that organizations in your impact area subscribe to. For Two Ten Footwear Foundation, it was the human resources professionals in the footwear industry. The foundation gets insights into the specific challenges the employees are dealing with, and these relationships provide a channel for direct communication with their employees.  

Also, create surveys to hear directly from grantees about what is working and where there are unnecessary hurdles. Two Ten is using a survey to evaluate their processes and remove barriers so they are continually improving their grantee experience.   

2. Build Agile Processes  

Constantly look for better ways to communicate with your grantees and provide the support they actually need. This requires looking at the data collected during the application process and creating processes that can be flexible based on the changing needs of your community.  

Two Ten originally paid vendors, such as landlords and utility companies, on behalf of their grantees. After reviewing the data, they found that the paper checks were often credited to the wrong account, arriving too late, or not getting received at all. The organization changed its model to provide digital payments and paying its grantees directly. What used to take weeks can now take days, which is crucial if someone has been displaced by a natural disaster and can’t access their mailbox. This change helped the organization drive better results and eliminated waste.  

3. Establish Multiple Grant Pathways  

When you identify a different need that still fits within your mission, a new grant pathway allows you to stay flexible while also maintaining your core funding program. Use your feedback channels, your applicant data, and industry trends to determine if there is another way you can fulfill a need in your community. Many funders already have emergency grant programs to help organizations during a crisis, but you might find a more perpetual need based on your conversations with your community. 

By constantly evaluating their programs and analyzing the data they collected, Two Ten realized that their grantees could benefit from education. The population that stood to benefit the most is also least likely to take advantage of their scholarship program due to household composition. So, the organization established Two Ten WIFI (Women in Footwear Industry) Professional Development Grants, with a plan to expand this program to additional segments of the industry workforce.  

4. Identify Other Low-Cost Resources  

Providing relief isn’t always about giving a cash grant. Build partnerships with and provide referrals to organizations that could help your community without having to develop new programs.  

As the demand for Two Ten’s services spiked, the organization found their grantees also needed legal and mental health counseling. Two Ten began curating a list of resources and other services so they could provide no-cost access to wellness and mental health resources, upskilling opportunities, and access to free courses. Now, even if an applicant doesn’t qualify for financial assistance, they won’t leave empty-handed.   

5. Don’t Be Complacent  

Technology changes every day. This has the potential to affect how you serve your community and how your community wants to work with you. Always assume that there is a better way to collect data or administer grants. Find someone who is doing it or create a better way on your own.  

Reserves at least one hour each week for research. Use this time to search for new tools, research best practices, and stay on top of trends that may impact your community. Understand new capabilities in your grant management system or join a webinar on a topic affecting you or your grantees. 

Tackling Uncertainty as a Modern Grantmaker  

Funders understand change. You wouldn’t be in this industry if you didn’t want some aspects of this world to be different. But the modern grantmaker understands that it’s difficult to plan for today’s change. You won’t have six months to plan for the next climate event or have a well-researched set of next steps for an overnight change in federal funding. 

But you can mitigate uncertainty by being open and communicating with your stakeholders. Share what you know, what you don’t know, and the steps you are taking. And then listening to make sure your plans align with the needs of your community. 

Learn how other grantmaking organizations are incorporating flexibility and knowledge sharing into their funding processes with our resource, Qualities of a Modern Grantmaker.