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(Solution, Problem), (A donor’s large contribution allowed us to provide…
Solution
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Need to understand importance of multi-year support (cited by 14% of respondents). This provides the environment to further experimentation and address entrenched problems.
Social Innovation: To advance social innovation, funders can incentivize collaboration between social enterprises and/or non-profits which address interconnected issues, to elevate and amplify each organization’s strengths.
adding women and more ethnic and cultural representation into decision-making roles. Some are working to establish authentic conversations with grantees.
Problem
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The real need is to address the dramatic imbalance of power and lack of real dialogue between funders and social entrepreneurs. It is a difficult discussion.
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relationship between social innovators and funders is critical to addressing the interconnected, systemic issues threatening our world.
too many donors were providing restrictive funding that was difficult for charities to fully utilise.
Many donors are suffering from ‘logframitis’,” he said. “They want us to package the long-term and systematic change into neat little fundable projects that fit their programme and timelines."
A donor’s large contribution allowed us to provide tens of thousands of vulnerable African children with practical information via our solar and wind-up radios. However, the donor imposed excessive reporting requirements, allowed only 2% overhead, and her ongoing contract changes required $10,000 in legal expenses, resulting in a significant financial loss. I felt hoodwinked and ashamed.”
“A donor requested we turn our female employees into volunteers in order to ‘make our organization more financially sustainable.’ Obviously, we said no.”
“A development finance institution made their grant contingent upon our hiring an expensive consulting firm. The consulting fees we had to pay ate up a significant portion of the grant.”
“A well-known donor institution funded the distribution of our affordable medical devices to public health clinics yet refused to fund the training required for nurses/doctors to use the devices properly. We pushed back, arguing that improper use of the devices could cause life-threatening health complications. We struggled for months to fundraise for the training component from other sources because we couldn’t jeopardize safety. Eventually, they relented. But it was shocking we had to advocate so vociferously for patient safety with a name-brand donor.”
“After receiving a large grant from their CSR budget, a company put our logo and their logo on their corporate marketing material without our permission. It looked like we had sold our organization to this company. The reaction was so negative, we struggled to contain the fallout and ultimately had to end our partnership.”
“An impact investor arrogantly questioned our integrity and critically interrogated our processes and financials, consuming countless hours of our management team over many months. The investor even demanded we change our business model to suit them, and in the end, more than a year later, they didn’t invest. Our scarce resources had been wasted.”
Sadly, most social enterprises/NGOs have stories underscoring how funders’ exertion of power manifests in programmatic compromises, ethical knots, budgetary jeopardy of uncompensated expenses, and relationships that are strained or broken in the name of funding – all of which erodes our collective impact.
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Changing the status quo
Imagine, if you will, a new “contract” of authentic dialogue between funders and the field. While this requires candour by both funders and potential grantees, the power dynamic means that funders have an important role to set the stage.
