Best Practices - Grantmaker-Donor Relations

Saying Yes / Saying No to Applicants: Strengthening Your Decision-Giving Skills
GrantCraft
This guide offers observations and suggestions from grantmakers and grantees to make the funding decisions easier and more meaningful.  The guide also provides recommendations on how to say yes, or no, so that grant applicants understand your foundation's rationale, feel that they've been treated fairly, and can make realistic plans about their next steps.

A Map of the Craft: What Do Grantmakers Say they Need to Get Beyond the Basics
GrantCraft
The map identifies seven challenges in grant making, as well as the practices and skills that can help you overcome them.  Grantcraft compiled responses from hundreds of Grantmakers about what they need to get beyond the basics and then charted their answers.

Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
Measurable guidelines help foundations and other institutional grantmakers to operate ethically and maximize the impact of their dollars. The guidelines attempt to answer the questions: What differentiates an exemplary foundation from the rest of its peers? What can foundations do to improve its relevance to nonprofits, the economically and socially underserved Americans and society as a whole?

Supporting Next-Generation Leadership
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
This action guide explores the role grantmakers can take in attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of nonprofit leadership.

The Nonprofit Quarterly's Study on (U.S.) Nonprofit and Philanthropic Infrastructure
Nonprofit Quarterly
The study maps and examines the strengths and weaknesses of the network that supports nonprofits and philanthropy in the U.S. Major findings address who is getting best served among nonprofits and why.  The study also includes a provocative sub-study of the financial models of infrastructure organizations.

Communicating for Impact: Strategies for Grantmakers
GrantCraft
Grantmakers can use a "communications lens" to develop strategy, evaluate impact, take advantage of new media technologies, and more. Foundation communications goes far beyond an annual report or the occasional press release about grantees and integrating communications is critical to advancing programmatic goals.

Funder-Intermediary Relationships: Survey Report
The Fieldstone Alliance
A set of critical success factors can lead to positive, mutually beneficial relationships between funders and intermediaries. These factors can be used by both funders and intermediaries as a guide when developing contracts or grants, and as a tool to manage the ongoing work of the partnership.

Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose: Challenges and Opportunities in Grant Application and Reporting
Project Streamline
This report offers different principle for grantmakers and philanthropy associations to reduce the burden on nonprofits and free up more time and money for mission-based activities.