Poor Communications by Foundations

Foundation response to the economic downturn has done little to assist or inform US Not for Profits, according to a new report.

Many foundations have not only done a poor job of communicating their plans during the downturn to their grantees but also have not been perceived as helpful to their grantees as many Not for profits have struggled to reorganise.

A new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) finds that Not for Profits do not perceive funders to have communicated their responses to the economic downturn clearly, if at all. They also report that funders have offered them little useful help in responding to the challenges of the downturn.

CEP began asking grantees about their funders’ communications and helpfulness in response to the downturn in the last half of 2009. The report analyzes data gathered from surveys of over 6,000 grantees of 37 foundations.

Thirty percent of grantees indicated that there was no communication from their funders about their own response to the economic climate, and of those that did report receiving communication, 22 percent indicate that the funder’s response was unclear.

Ellie Buteau, vice president of research says these findings are sobering. Buteau and research analyst Shahryar Minhas, the report’s co-authors, also found that a full third of grantees surveyed indicated that their funders had not helped them at all during the downturn.

She says these findings are important because, for Not for Profits, the effects of the downturn continue and foundations will need to reflect on how they can best help those they fund through what continue to be challenging times.

The full report is available at http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/assets/pdfs/CEP_DatainAction_ATimeofNeed.pdf