Fact #1: Funders get bogged down in due diligence, report review, and grant follow-up when they could be developing more effective and efficient funding strategies.

Fact #2: Nonprofits spend too much time and money meeting specific funder requirements for application and reporting.

Fact #3: Due diligence, grant applications, and reporting have to happen.

Can we make all of this waste less time?

Well, the answer is…maybe. There have been a few efforts to streamline grant processes regionally, and even a large effort nationally. The jury is still out as to whether or not these efforts are the silver bullet.

Local Efforts
Many local grantmaking associations, like Philanthropy New York (formerly the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers), have been streamlining their process for years. This means that the funders aligned with Philanthropy New York agree to accept a standard grant application from nonprofit agencies and a standard reporting format from nonprofit agencies, ensuring that agencies with programs funded by association members don’t have to write different reports for each funder — they only have to write one.

While this is happening in several regional areas, there are still many funders in those regions who decline to jump on board.

National Efforts
Managed by Grants Managers Network, Project Streamline is a national initiative developed by the following partner agencies:

• Grants Managers Network (GMN)
• Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP)
• Association of Small Foundations (ASF)
• Council on Foundations (CoF)
• Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers (Forum)
• Foundation Center
• Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO)
• National Council of Nonprofits (NCN)

Currently in Phase II of a three-phase campaign, Project Streamline focuses on four core principles: Take a fresh look at reporting and application requirements, Right-size grant expectations, Relieve the burden on grantees, and Make communication and grantmaking process clear and straightforward.

To date, the initiative has picked up some heavy-hitting sponsors, including the Gates, Hewlett, Ford, Robert Wood Johnson, and Packard Foundations.

Analysis
While regional efforts have had lukewarm results, I’m very interested to see how these theories work in practice nationally. This isn’t a new problem, and it’s been exacerbated over the years by resistance to change, a lack of trust between funder and grant recipient, and even a lack of trust within the funding community.

Institutional funders spend time and money developing targeted grantmaking strategies, and there’s a concern that standardizing processes might lessen the control currently held by foundations over what outcomes are being measured, reported, and publicized by individual agencies. If there is any remaining competition between institutional funders to be the most successful and most innovative, and if there is any remaining competition between nonprofit agencies motivating some to go above and beyond, you’re going to end up with people coloring outside the lines: funders will continue to require more targeted and specific information, and agencies will still spend hours customizing their applications and reports in order to stand out among the crowd.

So Can We Fix It?
Those three truths I mention in the beginning of the piece are ingrained into the current grantmaking process, and a lot of people in the nonprofit arena have internalized those truths.

That said, the more we can move toward at least the option of standardization, the better. It will take time, and it will take some shifts in thought between funders and agencies, but it is possible.

And the time savings and efficiencies picked up along the way will no doubt be useful to those funders and agencies striving to leave the competition behind them and focus on the real work.