The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Relationships Between You and the Board Members

Presentations, of course, require personal interaction between you and the members of the foundation's board of trustees. Foundations vary widely when it comes to policies about contact between staff and trustees. Some encourage such interactions, on the theory that staff and board can bring mutually useful ideas and experiences to the common enterprise. More common are those foundations that build a veritable Berlin Wall between the two, on the theory that board members should set policy and not get involved in day-to-day operations. The majority of foundations operate between these two extremes, allowing episodic but not consistent contact between board and staff members.

Whatever stance a foundation ...