Fall Funder Podcast Series: A Discussion with Shireen Zaman, Program Officer, BUILD // Ford Foundation
On this month’s The Business Behind Fundraising podcast, I interviewed Shireen Zaman of the Ford Foundation’s BUILD program. We demystified LOTS of myths about the grantor/grantee relationship, but one of the topics I’m still thinking about?....
🔥Submitting Foundation Budgets with COMPENSATION AT MARKET RATES🔥
[It’s at minute 17:00 if you want to jump right in! Podcast link HERE.]
Ok. During any given week, I hear things like:
💬“That foundation would never give us THAT much.”
💬“Foundations don’t like THAT much overhead in our budgets. 10% is their limit.”
💬“Our Foundation grants NEVER cover our REAL overhead needs.”
💬 “Foundations don’t want to talk, they just want us to submit the application.”
Now, I’m not saying you’ve never heard these words before…frankly, you might continue to hear them. But, you can’t assume it’s industry standard. It’s time to rewrite that invisible script in our minds and open our ears to what others are saying…
What do I mean? Well, you can hear straight from Shireen on this issue:
She describes a start-up org she’s working with who is not compensating employees at market rates, but is working on a BUILD grant.
She describes this scenario and says:
💬“It would actually be really helpful for us to know what your actual budget would be if you were paying everybody at market rate.”
💬 “We don’t want to to necessarily perpetuate the cycle by continuing to fund you at a level that's not actually going to get you to the place where you need to be in terms of compensation.”
💬 “[If you don’t tell us]...we assume that the budget that you submitted to me is the budget of what it’s actually going to take.”
💬 “And so it should be ideally a dialogue. The funder should be asking the question and hopefully the nonprofit should be sharing kind of the full information as well.”
In the podcast episode Shireen suggests you factor 20-30% overhead into each grant submittal.
Full stop.
It’s kinda practical if we let it be.
Know your financial need.
Build relationships.
Ask for what you need.
PLEASE take a listen to this episode on Apple or YouTube!
Whenever you’re ready, here are THREE things you can do next:
👣 Follow me on LinkedIn where I share the same lessons I teach my clients about attracting larger gen-ops dollars and adding 7-figures + to their bottom line.
🍎 Read my GUIDE! THE TRUTH ABOUT GIVE/GETS :: Top 5 Reasons Your Board’s Give/Get Is Leaving Thousands (Sometimes Millions) on the Table. See how limiting board members to the Give/Get model restricts gifts and keeps your staff from reaching their full fundraising potential. Here to get it.
📈 Work with me to scale your org's revenue by 2-5X and fund your organization’s Strategic Plan // If you’re a business-minded CEO already raising MILLIONS but need to diversify revenue and secure more general-operating dollars to invest in growth, you can apply to work with me here.
