News & Stories
Inside Our Grantmaking Process: Inclusive, Impact-Driven, and Community-Focused
Photo credit: Thompsonville Area Revitalization Project (TARP), one of our grant partners | Image description: TARP board members and volunteers standing together in outdoor work gear and in front of a cart pulling landscape work items.
At the Community Foundation, we work to ensure our grantmaking reflects our vision, mission, and values, upholds our deep commitment to equity and inclusion, and supports the best outcomes for the people and communities in our region.
We accept grant applications throughout the year from a variety of organizations serving Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Leelanau Counties and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians. Receiving hundreds of requests annually, our staff works with many community volunteers to make funding decisions during our various grant cycles. Although each grant cycle has a slightly different review process, we strive to ensure each process is fair, equitable, and transparent.
Our Community Funds Grantmaking Process
We can look at our Community Funds process as an example. Our Community Funds are a collection of flexible, responsive funds that support a broad variety of needs and opportunities that our other funds cannot. The Community Funds grant and review process incorporates strategies that we laid out in our newly created Grantmaking Guide, including a framework for how we prioritize grant requests. There are four key themes of prioritization including: areas of greatest need, inclusivity and accessibility, partnerships and collaboration, and capacity.
Grant Review Theme #1: Scorecard Objectives
Beginning with areas of greatest need, we prioritize grant partnerships that work toward one or more of the outcomes identified on the Northwest Michigan Community Development Scorecard. This Scorecard features measurable economic, societal, and environmental goals for our region, with specific targets for improvement by 2030. Goals range from increasing the average wages of employees in the area, to improving arts and culture resources, to reducing carbon emissions.
In addition to using the Scorecard as a tool in our grant review, this year, we have a particular emphasis on organizations addressing housing and mental health and well-being. These two causes have been identified as two areas of greatest need in our communities through multiple surveys and datapoints that we’ve collected. This does not mean we won’t fund projects that fall outside these areas. We review these prioritizations at least every three years, so we can adapt over time in response to changing or emerging community needs.
Grant Review Theme #2: Inclusivity & Accessibility
The second theme we use to evaluate grant requests is inclusivity and accessibility. We value inclusivity and accessibility and supporting partners that reflect the diversity of our communities and center those with lived experiences. We prioritize communities that have been disproportionately impacted, underserved, underfunded, or historically excluded. In addition, through this lens, we evaluate whether the program is accessible to a diversity of people (i.e. race, ethnicity, economic status, immigration status, LGBTQ+ identity, veterans, and disability).
Grant Review Theme #3: Partnerships & Collaboration
Partnerships and collaboration is the third theme in our Community Funds grant review. We consider how organizations are partnering and coordinating their work, while also recognizing that organizations have varied capacity and different needs for these partnerships to accomplish their work. In this category, we also look to see if the project or program is targeting a unique need and that services aren’t being duplicated elsewhere.
Grant Review Theme #4: Organizational Capacity
Finally, we prioritize partnerships with organizations that have the capacity to ensure the organization’s current future success. During our review we look at things like whether the organization has the staff, board and volunteers with the expertise needed, and if they have a plan for sustainability. It’s important to mention that we partner with organizations of all sizes and we seek to support both new emerging organizations as well as well-established organizations.
An Equitable, Transparent, Relationship-Based Approach
To ensure an equitable and transparent review process, our staff and review committees use an evaluation rubric when reviewing requests. We use the rubric to score each proposal and then we have a discussion. Our funding decisions are not based solely on the rubric, but it's used to inform our discussion and decision-making. We give our grant partners feedback on their applications when possible, and we give them an opportunity to give us feedback about the grants process through surveys and our final reports. This allows us to continuously evaluate our grant application and review processes and make improvements when necessary.
In addition, we also have a good understanding of other funding partners in our area and make referrals when possible. Alternatively, we may redirect a request that isn’t the best fit for one opportunity but may be funded through another fund within our organization.
All-in-all, we take a relationship-based approach in our grantmaking and we try to be more than just a funder; we aim to be a partner to many organizations doing crucial work supporting the people and places we love across our region.