Donnie Maclurcan offers a guide to philanthropic organisations on how they might improve their game in today’s world where growth can be sidelined and the C-word banned.
I sense a healthy deepening into introspection in ‘new economy’ funding spaces. There’s growing acknowledgement of how large-scale philanthropy is typically built upon and often reinforces oppression. There’s also rising awareness around money trauma and intersectional power dynamics, with more grantors enlisting neutral intermediaries to confidentially filter grantee feedback.
Simultaneously, new economy language is increasingly centred on philanthropic conversations. When, in 2010, we at the Post Growth Institute introduced ‘post-growth’ into the wider lexicon (creating #postgrowth, the ‘post-growth’ Wikipedia entry, etc.), funders would talk to us only if we agreed not to refer to ‘post-growth’. Now, some funders explicitly support post-growth framing, and others publicly advocate for ‘post-capitalist’ visioning; there are ‘anticapitalist’ wealth management firms and books titled ‘Post Capitalist Philanthropy’. Correspondingly, I was happily surprised by the comfortable use of ‘post-growth’ and ‘degrowth’ at a recent event hosted by Partners For a New Economy.
With these shifts, it feels safer and timely to share some ways grantors might better support new economy organizations in terms of funder positioning, proposals, and priorities.
Positioning
Be upfront in the exploratory phase to reduce prospective grantee anxiety. The financial costs of being in the exploratory stage are different for grantors and prospective grantees. Such differences can be stark when a grantor ends an exploratory call saying, ‘we should connect again soon’. What first appears to be an encouraging statement, can leave grantees feeling anxious, and unclear as to what to expect or how best to proceed.
Be upfront, as early as appropriate, about the typical length of relational conversing, overall timelines, funding likelihood, and the influence (if any) of the people with whom prospective grantees are talking. This helps us all allocate time effectively.
Pay prospective grantees as consultants when learning is involved.
Pay prospective grantees as consultants when learning is involved. If things are heading towards a match, instead of/in addition to asking prospective grantees ‘how much they need’, it would be helpful for grantors to share the absolute maximum they could imagine funding. Alternatively, if there’s zero per cent chance of funding, but a grantor doesn’t feel able to say that, then it can help to share, “We strongly recommend you look elsewhere”.
Pay prospective grantees as consultants when learning is involved. If a grantor is investigating a field they’ve recently strategically prioritised and would like to know more about the topic/ecosystem, offer to pay potential grantees as consultants to share their stories and insights. Or, if an ‘exploratory call’ unexpectedly results in a grantor gaining insights they might have chosen to spend time and energy acquiring elsewhere, an unsolicited donation can offer reciprocity.
Proposals
Provide clarity on how to get to a solicited application. If a grantor’s website says they’re not accepting unsolicited applications, but they are open to new grantees, provide prospective grantees with clarity on how to appropriately get on a funder’s radar.
There’s a psychological and emotional benefit for those writing and reading grant applications when they start with what’s working before what’s not.
Subsidise the labour required for groups to apply for funding. The boldest idea I’m proposing is that grantors allocate a portion of their funding to offer payments to all applicants for the labour required to apply for their grants. Yes, it can be tricky to work out the criteria/rates. Yes, it can be considerable work to process international payments, especially if there are thousands of applicants, but it can be done. Subsidising the application process could incentivise smaller-scale groups to engage with funding opportunities, just as there’s value in sponsoring bursaries to increase the accessibility of philanthropic networking events. We need multiple ways to ‘widen the solution space’, as Dr. Gillian Marcelle entreats, and acknowledgement that the risk burden in applying for grants remains underwritten by organisations.
Use a strengths-based approach in grant application design. There’s a psychological and emotional benefit for those writing and reading grant applications when they start with what’s working before what’s not (more about asset-based approaches here). Hence, make the first question in grant applications a strengths-based one. E.g., ‘Tell us about your work/field and what’s going well/what you’re learning’.
Acknowledge the centrality of labour in requested budgets. In this digital era, some programmatic budgets will be made up entirely of labour costs. Because it can feel uncomfortable for prospective grantees to submit budgets with only a few line items, it would help grantors to provide budgeting templates that allow greater specificity of roles/functions associated with a program’s labour. Likewise, reassurance that programmatic budgets centred on staffing costs won’t be penalised can enable a more easeful experience for prospective grantees.
And while challenges with philanthropy’s focus on direct programmatic costs have been raised extensively, for grantees to internally model the new economy probably requires investment well beyond the industry’s ‘accepted’ 20 per cent ceiling for administrative costs. For example, the Post Growth Institute operates its programs with 51 per cent indirect ‘costs’. For us, such a level of investment is non-negotiable. It’s what enables us to support employee wellbeing, tensions tending, personnel management, internal and external learning, research, innovation, operations, finance, communications, fundraising, impact assessment, governance, reporting, and strategy, among other things. While technological innovations and AI will continue to offer disruptive possibilities, most of the above will continue to require relational approaches, for which humans remain best equipped.
Build infrastructure to offer feedback on all failed applications. Having the chance to learn what an organisation could have improved in its application is crucial for refinement. Hearing that such a possibility doesn’t exist because a grantor was “overwhelmed” by applications can feel disheartening and unfair. Feedback doesn’t need to be in-depth to be valuable — a little bit goes a long way.
Priorities
Fund real experiments in systems change. Philanthropy loves buzzwords, and ‘systems change’ is hot right now. But effective, ‘disruptive’ experiments in (economic) systems change typically:
- evolve over multi-generational time frames, requiring deep commitment, ongoing testing, and lack of attachment to outcomes;
- are tested at multiple scales (not justthe ‘frontline’ community level);
- are not, contrary to most funding emphasis, policy-focused (given the limitations of political capture in present systems);
- tap into profound wisdom that, with careful introduction/framing, finds widespread resonance, enabling co-creative engagement and sovereign uptake;
- inspire collaborative, broad-based coalitions within/across adjacent ‘ecosystems’, decentering White-dominant experiences; and
- measure ‘success’ via the quality of (un)learning, and subtle, sensed forms of feedback rather than ‘impact metrics’.
To fund (economic) systems change requires boldness — for funders to go beyond the trappings of “their own organisational logic models”, as Cameron Burgess puts it. It also requires more funding for co-developing comprehensive, viable, post-capitalist visions, outside of academia. Without such visions, we will continue to collectively toil without clarity as to whether our work is evolving systems change, or reinforcing resistance to it.
For grantees to widely adopt a learning-centered approach requires signalling from grantors.
Value grantees that demonstrate (un)learning over outputs, or even impact. Building on the above, more organizations need encouragement to bravely test the assumptions underpinning their funded projects and claims. Given there’s a financial incentive for grantees to source data that confirms a grantor’s desired outcomes, much gets masked with impressive ‘outputs’, or even ‘impact metrics’. An ‘impactful’ organisation (and its funders), may be learning little, unconsciously reinforcing dynamics they were both established to ameliorate.
For grantees to widely adopt a learning-centered approach requires signalling from grantors. Questions about (un)learning need to be at the heart of exploratory conversations, grant applications, and reporting. But there also needs to be acknowledgment that engaging in constant iterative design cycles, means slower, more thorough program/project development, which means larger budgets/less outputs. Signalling can also come with funders revealing their own (un)learning processes, given the assumptions they also bring to their work (often linked to their theories of change/transformation, as well as internalised biases).
This raises a much bigger issue. It’s possible that fund managers may demonstrate commitment to (un)learning, but that ‘silent’ funders/trustees who are pulling the purse strings are unwilling to learn that their expectations and/or priorities need adjusting. This is a moment for fund managers to call in such funders to a deeper reflection about their legacy, privilege and biases.
Tell grantees exactly what’s needed to fund them again. Increasingly, grantors are giving grantees options for ways to report on their work. It’s a well-intentioned move, with the idea of reducing the administrative burden. However, it can cause more stress, with grantees having to guess which type of reporting will increase the chances of further funding. When grantors are direct and upfront about their priorities and favoured forms of reporting, that can offer grantees the clarity needed to continue nurturing the relationship.
Many funders may be too stretched or feel too isolated to consider these proposals. I’ve been shocked, for example, to learn how many large funders have extremely small staff.
While the above provides funders with ideas for how they might better support new economy organizations, there’s an important caveat: many funders may be too stretched or feel too isolated to consider these proposals. I’ve been shocked, for example, to learn how many large funders have extremely small staff. Where true, a larger conversation may be needed about what it would mean for philanthropic organisations to adequately fund themselves. Either way, I’d welcome, publicly or privately, candid thoughts about which of the proposals feel unreasonable/infeasible.
I’d also love to know how grantors feel prospective grantees can better engage with them. For if we’re not in a co-liberatory process, it won’t truly be a new economy worth advocating for.
