A Tale of Two Funders
Amber Twitchell has worked in the nonprofit sector for almost 20 years. The current crisis has presented challenges she has never seen before. In this blog post, she reflects on the range of experiences she’s had with funders in response to covid-19. Amber highlights two foundations from the same community, yet still worlds apart.
Our local community foundation is made up of great people. Smart people that act as good partners and good stewards of the public’s money. We’ve worked together for many years and through several disasters. We have a pre-approved grant with them so when disaster strikes, money is automatically deposited into our account. We update the grant agreement when we are not in the middle of a disaster so that when we need it, we’ve already done the work and do not have to stop our work to write a proposal. We design disaster recovery services together, as equal partners. The foundation is flexible with reporting deadlines; they reply to my email with statements like “whatever is easiest for you.”
Following the last disaster, they were careful and intentional with their funding, and they were able to save some of it allows us to access it now. We offer emergency financial assistance to vulnerable community members, our staff is working from home, talking with dozens of people every day, working to get the money out on the street quickly. I sent an operational budget to the community foundation with real costs, they approved it with minimal questions and the grant agreement was available for digital signature the same day.
We are outrageously lucky to have this purpose- and trust-based partnership.
The local county government is a whole different story. Every year in March they announce awardees for grants to support community health projects. Nonprofits compete, fill out a rigorous application, and hold their breath until results are announced. This year, they held several meetings and asked us to complete several surveys before they released the application. We provided our audit and financial documents (again), created a logic model, wrote a twelve-page narrative, made six hard copies, and had to buy a jump drive for the electronic copy (that I’m pretty sure they never used). Although they delayed release of the award by a week, my agency, along with five others, were awarded the funds.
We were very excited – we were going to launch a peer-led mental health program for at-risk youth. The following week the Director of the department called to let us know that they were changing their course and recommending to the Board of Supervisors that the awards be pulled back and that a new RFP be released, still focusing on the same topics but with the addition of crisis response services. They called on Monday. The Board of Supervisors meeting was scheduled for Tuesday morning. Of course, in the middle of a global pandemic, we stopped what we were doing so that we could coordinate with the other agencies that had been awarded to participate in the Board of Supervisors meeting the next day.
We went through the motions: they apologized for the “perceived” lack of transparency and, in the end, did exactly what they set out to do. We were upset about losing the award, but we felt completely disrespected in the process. No one from the county reached out to talk with us before deciding to repurpose the money to address the crisis, even though we have been doing this work for years. We have been highlighted in national publications that praise nonprofits for being prepared to adapt all operations into disaster response. We know what we’re doing. However, they didn’t even ask for our opinion. The new RFP comes out in two weeks. I don’t want to apply. I want to say, “We don’t need your money” and “You can’t control us” but the likelihood is that we will apply, and we will probably get funded. Again.
These two entities are in the small town. They know each other. Their staff members even spend time together on the weekends (or at least they used to). Yet their approaches are so vastly different. One respects our work and wants to be behind us, supporting us and cheering us on. The other wants a spotlight in times of crisis and to be recognized for their money (which is not theirs), and don’t seem to care what it means for those of us desperate to support the people in our community that are truly struggling for their survival.
Our jobs are hard in normal times – during a crisis, more so. Running a nonprofit during a pandemic is not something that I signed up to do, but I am here, getting up every morning to try to bring in enough money to pay staff and support over 10,000 vulnerable community members. All of our trust-based funders are special to me. Being in partnership makes me feel seen for the experience I have amassed and the good work we do. It helps remind me that we are not alone. It helps keep me going. For all of you, I am truly grateful.
When funders make us jump through hoops, reduce funding with no notice and act as though the most important thing is that they get name recognition, it feels disrespectful and is a reminder that to many, the nonprofit sector is still “the other.” It also makes me wonder how many disasters I have left in me.