The Neighborhood Connections staff at The Cleveland Foundation will tell you that of the 150-200 grant applications they receive per round about half get funded. They will also tell you that of the half that gets funded, very few are first-time applicants. For a grants program that was created for the grassroots community, for the [...]
The tricky thing about grassroots grantmaking is that it operates in the nebulous gray space of the funding world. Behind the foundation walls are dollars and cents that add up very neatly, accounts receivable records coming through humming fax machines, and proof of non-profit status reports in piles across cubicle desks. On the streets ofClevelandCity’s [...]
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending my first Neighborhood Connections Final Report Party. What is a Final Report Party, you ask? Well, at the close of a grantee’s project year they have the option to complete their final report in several different ways. The first is to write a traditional, [...]
Resident-led grantmaking, with grantmaking committees composed of residents from the neighborhoods that are targeted for capacity building grants, is an emerging trend within the field of grassroots grantmaking. Currently, a number of organizations within Grassroots Grantmakers’ network of funding organizations utilize this practice. Other organizations in our network include neighborhood residents on their grantmaking committee [...]
A Genuine Democratization & Engagement Strategy A Special Publication from Grassroots Grantmakers Grassroots grants are an effective way to get residents engaged and invested in their own communities. Now a number of funders are taking the idea one step further, turning the grantmaking decisions over to the residents who live and work in the community [...]
The Neighborhood Connections staff at The Cleveland Foundation will tell you that of the 150-200 grant applications they receive per round about half get funded. They will also tell you that of the half that gets funded, very few are first-time applicants. For a grants program that was created for the grassroots community, for the [...]
The tricky thing about grassroots grantmaking is that it operates in the nebulous gray space of the funding world. Behind the foundation walls are dollars and cents that add up very neatly, accounts receivable records coming through humming fax machines, and proof of non-profit status reports in piles across cubicle desks. On the streets ofClevelandCity’s [...]
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending my first Neighborhood Connections Final Report Party. What is a Final Report Party, you ask? Well, at the close of a grantee’s project year they have the option to complete their final report in several different ways. The first is to write a traditional, [...]
