Monthly Archives: May 2020

Are Phone Calls Less Burdensome than Grant Reports?

I recently attended Philanthropy California’s and the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s webinar on their Simplify and Streamline Practice.

One foundation commented that they had migrated from requiring grantees to submit grant reports, to holding phone calls instead, as part of their trust-based philanthropy practice.

My question is to what extent and whether phone calls are truly more equitable and less burdensome for grantees? I’d be curious to hear your experiences with grantees. Here are a few thoughts:

  1. A grant report might actually be more efficient if the grantee can submit a report they had already drafted for another funder. If all funders stopped requiring reports and switched to phone calls, then that would be a different story.
  2. Depending on how the phone call is framed, a grantee might feel intimidated. A grantee might feel compelled to spend significant time preparing for the phone call, and may even write out their responses ahead of time (which would seem as burdensome as writing a grant report). I think of myself when I’m interviewing for a job, I will spend hours preparing written responses ahead of time, if I think this is a high-stakes interview and I’m going to be judged on my performance.
  3. A grantee organization may also have numerous staff participate in the phone call, just to ensure that all funder questions can be answered. So if you had a 1-hour call with 5 grantee staff members, this would be equivalent to 5 man (or person) hours. If it takes less than 5 hours for someone to draft a grant report, then the phone call seems to be more time intensive.
  4. Based on personality type, maybe some would prefer to respond and communicate in writing more than verbally.

I’m curious to know how funders have asked for phone calls from their grantees, in such a way to make it low pressure and low burden. How long are these calls typically and how frequent?

I could see a shorter phone call (e.g., 15 minutes)signaling that this is more low-stakes conversation and doesn’t require significant advance preparation, but then is the grantmaker gathering enough detail from the call about how things are going? Thoughts?