CONDUCT GRANTMAKING FOR WELLBEING
WHAT DOES FUNDING RESILIENCE AND WELLBEING LOOK LIKE?
Funders are used to funding the beneficiaries of charities.
They are funded via the ‘doers’, the 1.2 million staff1 and 5 million volunteers2 who show up to work everyday. If the doers are well - this will be transmitted to the people and places they care for.
Put simply, mentally healthy individuals in charities and not for profits think clearer, innovate and problem solve more effectively and cost their organisations less in turnover and claims.
If funders understand and fund wellbeing, we will avoid the chronic problems outlined here,
"Almost everyone in the sector talked about chronic problems with burnout, retention of excellent staff, high turnover, and exhaustion. Affected communities, activists, frontline campaigners, and NGO staff burn out. And there was real concern about how to retain good leaders. There is a need to support - through core funding, training, and other means - the people doing the work."
Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network (2021)
The practices below save time and stress for people who work in charities and not for profits across all cause areas.
PREVENT
- Save grantseeker’s time, their most precious and scant commodity by creating lean application and reporting processes.
- What information is really needed?
- Can an EOI process be put in place? This saves grantseeker's time and is especially helpful where there are many more applications than can be funded
- Fund wellbeing prevention to catch things before they become a crisis.
PROTECT
Some protective funding approaches include:
- Flexible funding - such as untied funding which doesn’t restrict organisations to projects and programs and allows them to put funding where it’s most needed including operational needs. Read more below.
- What is General Operating Support and Why is it Important by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
- Why give unrestricted core funding? by Groundswell
- The Ethical Argument for General Operating Funds by NonProfit AF
- Just Give ’Em the Money: The Power and Pleasure of Unrestricted Funding by Kevin Starr, Stanford Social Innovation Review (2011)
- If we want our funding to change the world video (1 minute, 40 secs) by Forefront
- Capacity and capability funding so charities can build their own knowledge and resilience.
- See A Mismatch in Philanthropic Interest and Support by Caitriona Fay, Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2017
- Reliable funding such as multi-year funding or a “welcome to apply again” approach. This allows organisations to retain talent longer than 12-month contracts and for outcomes to be refined and benefits to be ongoing. Reliable funding, as quoted below, allows for some exhale.
“Reliability allows for some exhale and some clarity on what’s possible. It generates more possibility for the organizations and for the funders.”
Sage Crump, National Performance Network, US
EDUCATE
- Adopt a learning mindset and support likewise in grantseekers to be true partners.
“We’re all in this together.”
Australian musician Ben Lee
ENHANCE
- Apply best practice wellbeing grantmaking techniques - collaboration, innovation, trust, leverage, scaling success and ‘paying what it takes’ are some examples. Talk to grantees about what would support their wellbeing and resilience.
CRISIS AND RECOVERY
- Practices above such as flexible and reliable funding allow for organisations to fund crisis and recovery support for people who work in the social sector while preventative measures grow.
HOW FUNDERS CAN DIRECTLY SUPPORT WELLBEING
Funders who understand the impact of the ‘wellbeing deficit’ and want to take a more direct role in supporting building wellbeing and resilience may consider below.
Individual level
- A special grant that supports an outstanding and overworked individual to take a break or sabbatical, knowing how problem solving and innovation flourishes when the focus is off the next deadline. Supporting our sector’s most valiant people will have a positive and cumulative impact.
Organisation level
- Open a wellbeing grant category or situate it clearly under a category such as capacity building. Let grantseekers know they can apply to bolster their people's wellbeing, mental health and resilience, for example, wellbeing policies, strategy and practice.
- Open up grants to a new beneficiary group - staff, leaders and volunteers in charities, not for profits and social enterprises.
Sector level
- Funding organisations or intermediaries who are supporting wellbeing and resilience across the whole sector. This might be to run conferences, collaborate, collect data, develop research partnerships, expand comms activities - and provide wrap around support to the whole sector.
Why Do We Need (intermediaries)?
"..intermediaries serve functions that overcome obstacles that curtail the nonprofit sector’s effectiveness, (such as) provid(ing) strategic capacity and expert guidance."
PEAK Grantmaking, US
FURTHER RESOURCES
- Best Practice Principles in Philanthropy (2019) by Caitriona Fay.
- How funders can do more to support the resilience of small charities (2020) Charities Aid Foundation.
