Request for Proposals

Once the initiative is well planned, the next step is to launch its grantmaking program. Because the foundation has a very good idea of the outcomes and impacts it is seeking, it should not waste time considering grant requests from every organization that wishes to send in a proposal. Generally, only a certain group of potential applicants has the capacity to deliver the desired impacts. It therefore makes sense to make this a party by invitation only rather than an open house.

A few foundations, especially the peremptory ones, simply anoint organizations to be grantees within an initiative. Far more common, however, is the idea that the foundation should choose grantees through a competitive process. The means used to ...

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