GEOList Summary: Policies on Grant-Funded Personnel Benefits

We’ve recently been discussing how we translate our value on health and equity into our grantmaking and other activities. One of the challenging questions has been around how we should respond if a grantee or grant applicant is not offering a benefits package (including health insurance) for a personnel position covered by our funding. Currently we actively encourage grant applications to include benefits along with salary (as well as increases for raises when the grant is multi-year). In one case the organization could not create an FTE position because of a current hiring freeze, but the grantee was able to offer a temporary position without benefits. We provided funding for and the grantee agreed to up the salary rate to compensate for the lack of a benefit package. In conversation with other grantees who have a position without benefits, their concern has been around equity within their organization (i.e., they can’t offer benefits because similar existing positions don’t have benefits). Does your foundation have a policy and/or process by which you handle this type of situation? Do you have specific language that you use to articulate the importance and value placed on offering employee benefits in a grant?