“Sustainability.” What’s that mean, exactly?

By Nick Geisinger, Communications Director, Washington Grantmakers

Everyone knows that it’s a good idea for a community-benefit organization to diversify its funding sources. Except…is it?

Different skills are needed for different kinds of fundraising. Everything takes time. Can a busy development officer with foundation expertise (or a communications person who lacks development expertise) successfully run a good small-donor operation on the side? Probably not!

Kathleen Enright (Grantmakers for Effective Organizations) put it to funders this way: each new funding stream is a new line of business. So, just how many new lines of business do we want a resource-starved organization to be in?

Ms. Enright hit on a number of topics during her January 13 discussion with WG members, but still rattling in my brain are questions about “sustainability,” some of which were echoed by attendees. What would a grant-seeking organization actually have to do to become sustainable? Would that be a good thing? What do we even mean by “sustainability?”

While I’m tossing out rhetorical questions, here’s a crazy thought I had last night:

If a grantmaker dedicated to  issue X finds a nonprofit doing excellent work on issue X… why not scrap all the one year grants, simply hire everyone at the nonprofit and become an operating foundation? It’s the ultimate in sustainability!

Option A) Move paper back and forth across the grantmaker/grantee divide, worry about misunderstandings, try to find better ways to bridge the knowledge gap/reduce paper/engage meaningfully. Constantly remind grantees and yourself that “we’re all really on the same team, working towards the same goals.”

Option B) Literally be on the same team, working towards the same goals. Program officers could spend more time on the Beyond Dollars activities—partnerships, voice, community leadership, leveraging resources, strategic planning—that lead to Big Change.

Okay, I’m sure there are reasons why that might not work in many cases. But which is more ridiculous—the above idea, or a policy forbidding funding a successful nonprofit for more than three consecutive years in order to encourage “sustainability?”

What are your thoughts on the issue of sustainability?

I’m still processing everything I took in on January 13. Judging from the event evaluations, attendees left with many immediately actionable and practical ideas. If you weren’t there, you missed a good one!

> Click here for executive summaries of recent GEO publications, including On the Money, which “highlights the financial challenges nonprofits face and the ways in which grantmakers are both improving the situation as well as perpetuating the problem.”