Program Planning and Design

Nonprofits addressing economic and social justice themes—in fact, virtually all nonprofits—ought to be familiar with the term. It was introduced by scholar and advocate Kimberle Williams Crenshaw in 1989 and it has its roots in civil rights activism and scholarship, and in the lives and lessons of DuBois, Douglass and Truth. And it’s turning up in the conversations between funders, community organizations and others who want to use grants to change the world.

MYTH: If we’re running our nonprofit efficiently, our overhead and administrative costs should be small.

There is widespread agreement that a proposal for a grant carries with it the aspirations and expectations of a lot of different people—our current shorthand is “stakeholders”—but sometimes we refer to them without thinking about who they really are.

Good news! You’ve submitted a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) and been invited to follow up with a full proposal. Now it’s time to actually write the thing. Here’s a system for making sure that your proposal is inclusive, accurate and compelling. It takes a little time but it’s worth it.

There comes a time when a proposal needs to include a logic model. Many foundations don’t require one but an increasing number are asking applicants to go beyond objectives and show, in a descriptive chart, the route you plan to take to get to the destination.

The temptation is to plunge into a proposal writing frenzy, cranking out thousands of words that seem likely to impress a foundation. Surely if you write a spellbinding proposal you’ll snag that grant! Here’s a modest suggestion: put that cart back behind the horse where it belongs.

You invested in a strategic planning process and everything seemed to line up—until your world got turned upside down by the pandemic and its aftershocks. These are five things your nonprofit might do to stay the course. Since you can’t rely on the old habits or the old assumptions, now’s a good time to renovate the way you go about your business.

Evaluation ought to be a part of the DNA of a nonprofit. It’s the way you know you are on the right track and all of the targets and goals are clear, realistic and appropriate. If you want to get to a destination, one of the first things to know is how you’ll recognize it when you arrive.

Identifying the specific social-change outcomes you hope to achieve is challenging, but it’s critical that the outcomes you propose accurately reflect your organization’s values and views along with an understanding of how social change works