Resources

Hello all, We are seeking resources or sample policies for foundations that offer stipends to NPOs that they invite to apply, to cover the NPO’s time in filling out the application/write the proposal. Thank you as always for your knowledge sharing! Georganna

Hello everyone, We are seeking examples of conflict of interest policies that covers the board for their review of grants, including recusals. Thank you! Georganna ___

Hello all, Has anyone seen a form or other method of collecting demographic data from staff/constituents, that they feel is respectful and well done? We know that Candid is a good place to enter that demographic data once collected data but we've had questions from nonprofits and others about how best to collect the information from their staff and/or constituents. Any thoughts and/or resources you have would be much appreciated. Thank you! Georganna

Hi GEO friends, We are revisiting how or when to support organizations with large endowments. We’ve discussed criteria like whether the endowment is unrestricted, how many months or years of operating reserves it contains, etc. Does anyone use any guidelines or have any resources to share re: whether to fund an organization with a sizeable endowment? Thanks in advance, Stephanie

Greetings, Our Foundation is currently looking for a new system to manage Payroll and Benefits. We are a private family foundation with 7 staff members. I am curious if there are organizations similar in size that use these applications to manage their benefits and payroll? Furthermore, I am curious to learn how folks structure HR if it is not in-house, what type of system(s) do you utilize? Please share your thoughts and insight if you have any! Kindly, Lindsey

Hello GEO community, I am hoping you can help. As part of our racial equity learning journey, we’re looking to survey our staff to get an understanding of their awareness & perceptions of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion and ideas for where we should go next in terms of centering racial equity in how we operate as an organization and in how we do grantmaking (strategies, policies and practices). We’ve got lots of good guides and resources, like the one put out by GEO. Right now, what would be most helpful is actual survey instruments (e.g., survey questions, survey framing, etc) that you’ve used at your philanthropic organization? Thanks in advance for considering and for sharing,

Hello Everyone, We are looking at our Vacation/Sick Leave policies and considering transitioning to a PTO bank for leave. Is anyone willing to share their PTO policies, including any carryover or payout upon termination with us? Thank you, ___

Hi all, We’d like to extend the term of a loan to a nonprofit to allow 12 additional months before the outstanding balance is due to the Foundation. Does anyone have a loan extension template we could take a look at? Thanks, Gina ___

Hi all, We are trying to balance a streamlined workflow and moving toward more trust-based philanthropy with our due diligence processes. To that end, two questions (if you have a chance to reply, please include reasoning behind your responses): 1. How many of you require the submission of a final report for a previous grant before releasing a new award? For instance, if a grantee applies around the same time annually, do you require a final report submission first even if that means there is lag time between the grant approval and the funding release? 2. What financial documents do you require with a proposal submission? A Form 990? Audit or financial review? The aforementioned plus current financial statements? Anything else? Any feedback from the GEO community on your processes is appreciated! Thanks so much, Stephanie

Hello all, I’m reaching out to ask for your insights around two questions we have. First, as we consider funding new organizations in areas where we are not yet active, we are currently updating our grantee cohort criteria. Does your foundation fund in cohorts? If so, would you be willing to share the criteria you all are using? Any learnings shared will be greatly appreciated. Also, on an unrelated note, one of our community organizing grantee partners in New York has an executive director who will soon leave her position and is looking for funding to support a 2-3 month learning sabbatical. Do you know of any funders that currently have sabbatical programs for something like this? So appreciative of any insights shared. Many thanks,