Dear ninety-nine girlfriends members,

The global pandemic has upended much in our society and caused us to think about how we, as ninety-nine girlfriends, need to adapt our 2020 grantmaking and learning in light of how COVID-19 has affected nonprofits and the people they serve. 

Members of the Coordinating Council and the Grants Steering Committee have worked in earnest to identify and explore potential changes in our grantmaking for 2020. Below is a proposal for your review. As a member-driven organization, your input is critical to our work together. This is our work together, collectively, and every voice counts. Please take a few minutes to weigh in.

We’ve listened to how other giving circles and philanthropic entities are responding and what they are suggesting (see resources here). What we’ve heard is that grantmakers should trust their nonprofit partners who know best what’s needed: provide general rather than restricted financial support; invest in work to support vulnerable populations; and be responsive to the profound demands arising from COVID-19. Need exists not only for direct assistance but also for efforts to rebuild and repair the social safety net. This means supporting efforts to change systems and policies as well as investing in the nonprofits who are so fragile financially during this time. 

PROPOSAL:

Our grantmaking goal for this year is to provide support to our nonprofit community as they respond to the challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, with special emphasis on supporting efforts to help benefit people affected by inequity due to race, discrimination or exclusion, including people of color, people living in poverty, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ+, veterans, people experiencing homelessness, the elderly, and youth. 

We want to continue to fund across our five focus areas, prioritizing responsiveness and breadth. Key changes we propose for this year:

1.      Allow grants to be used as unrestricted funds, rather than for specific projects. We will ask applicants to describe how they are responding to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable populations and use this as our criteria for selection.This will still require some kind of simple reporting to let us know about results. 

2.      Give out more, smaller grants. Keeping within the definition of “significant”, flex the amount to approximately $50K, rather than $100K. Please keep in mind the amount and the number of grants will depend on our final membership number.

3.      Accelerate the timing of payments through streamlining the grant review process to get funds in the hands of our grantee partners more quickly.

Please give us your feedback on this proposal by responding to this brief survey by noon this Thursday, April 16. We will share the survey results promptly, including answers to the questions you raise. Your input will enable us to move forward with communicating with nonprofits, organizing the Grant Review Teams, and updating the calendar. Your Grants Steering Committee is working through details and will continue to share information as we build out the process.

Thank you!

Ninety-nine girlfriends Coordinating Council and Grants Steering Committee