“The Time Was Right.” How Three Funders Joined Forces to Simplify the Grant Application Process

In July 2021, San Francisco-based Vogl Consulting published a report gauging the impact of emergency funding distributed to Bay Area artists and cultural organizations during the pandemic. The study, which was commissioned by the Walter & Elise Haas Fund and the Akonadi Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and East Bay Community Foundation, showed that the region’s private and public grantmakers rose to the occasion by creating over 140 emergency funds, including many critical initiatives supporting BIPOC artists and BIPOC-led arts organizations.

But the study also concluded that relief efforts would have been more effective and equitable if grantmakers doubled down on collaboration to simplify the grant application process and promote funding opportunities. Looking back, it’s easy to see why leaders weren’t able to collaborate with maximal efficiency, as their first order of business was acting quickly to ensure their grantees’ short-term solvency and provide artists with much-needed income.

That said, the report’s findings struck a chord with the region’s arts grantmakers. In an email to IP, leaders at the Fleishhacker Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation and Zellerbach Family Foundation said that the call for greater collaboration in pursuit of making grantseekers’ lives easier “is something that grantseekers have requested for years and has been a dream of funders for just as long, but the process always seemed daunting and the undertaking huge. It felt like the time was right to finally answer the call to action, and at least put an honest effort into collaboration in service of greater efficiency for everyone.”

In response, the three funders created the Common App for the Arts, a standardized application that enables Bay Area artists, arts organizations and fiscally sponsored projects to apply for grants at all three foundations. The pilot phase for the application launched in early June, and anecdotal feedback from the community has been “extremely positive,” according to the foundations. Applicants are “simply expressing appreciation for their calls to action being heard and that funders are coming together to make things more efficient and simpler for grantseekers.”

Toward a common application

The effort to develop the Common App kicked off at the end of 2021, when individuals representing 15 to 20 Bay Area arts funders convened to explore how the pandemic had affected the region’s arts ecosystem. Among other topics, the discussion involved determining which funders were interested in adjusting their application processes.

Leaders from Fleishhacker, Rainin and Zellerbach collected information from roughly 18 of the region’s funders to identify areas of overlap in their application materials. “What we found was that most of the requested information was the same, just being asked in 18 slightly different ways,” representatives of the foundations said. The next step involved narrowing the list of questions down to the essential information funders needed to make an informed decision. They also refined questions, proposed suggested word counts and simplified language to reduce “philanthro-speak.”

This exercise informed the design of the Common App, which covers grantmaking programs at all three funders and includes questions spread out across four categories: Organization/Individual Artist Information, Project Specific, General Operating Support and Demographics. Created with strategic and technical assistance from Vogl Consulting, the application also includes information about each funder’s upcoming grant cycles as well as links to funders’ programs, priorities, eligibility and guidelines.

Of course, not all grants are the same, so the app includes user-friendly customization. For example, Zellerbach’s Community Arts program is for project support, so it does not ask any of the questions on the app’s GOS section. Conversely, Fleishhacker’s program is for GOS, so the funder isn’t represented in the app’s project-specific section.

The promise of being able to apply at many grantmakers “under one roof” still hasn’t quite reached full fruition, though. Currently, the app does not let users apply at all three funders at once, since the grantmakers still use different grant management systems. According to the foundations, “Our hope is to streamline that on the back end in the future and have a central location for grantseekers to complete the Common App, and then it would upload automatically to those funders to whom they were eligible to apply.” Until then, grantseekers are uploading their Common App responses to each of the funder grantee portals. They can also bypass the app entirely and apply directly on the funders’ sites.

An iterative process

Zellerbach launched its first cycle using the Common App in June, and Fleishhacker from mid-June to mid-July. Zellerbach and Rainin will have concurrent application cycles, both using the Common App, from September 4 through September 18.

As noted, grantseekers appreciate the app’s efficiency. That said, there’s always the risk that the system becomes too efficient and funders find themselves inundated with applications, making the evaluation process unmanageable. This scenario hasn’t come to pass just yet, but it’s something leaders are keeping an eye on.

Leaders also acknowledged that too much standardization could restrict grantseekers’ ability to express themselves or erase important funder-specific nuances. As a result, the Common App consists of 90% standardized questions and 10% unique questions “offering grantseekers the opportunity to address each funder’s priorities.” The foundations noted that the ratio has “so far proved very successful.”

To further optimize the end-user experience, the foundations completed an accessibility audit and plan to translate the app’s materials to make it accessible to non-English speakers. After a few more cycles, the foundations will conduct a user experience survey to inform any adjustments or changes in future versions.

The leaders said they’ve been committed to integrating community feedback throughout the ongoing development process. “We’ve taken a ‘nothing for us without us’ approach to the development of this application — if it is intended to serve the community and provide greater efficiency and ease burdens on grantseekers, they must be given every opportunity to share what will accomplish that goal,” they said. “We’ve had focus groups and surveys with grantseekers, panel members, grants managers, fiscal sponsors, and other funders to ensure we’re seeing each decision from as many angles as possible.”

“Continue to adapt as your community grows”

The Common App’s pilot phase comes on the heels of a new Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) report — which I wrote about recently — showing that funders have made at least some progress in reducing the amount of time nonprofits spend on the application process. This is good news because beyond giving leaders more time in their day, more efficient processes reduce barriers to entry for smaller organizations that lack the resources to navigate a byzantine application process or hire an expert grant writer.

While the CEP report implies that funders have cut the number of questions on their own respective applications, the Common App shows what’s possible when grantmakers join forces, letting applicants navigate multiple funder opportunities via a user-friendly interface.

This sounds simple on paper, but we need to remember that in many corners of philanthropy, “collaboration” — however one defines it — can be the exception, rather than the rule. That’s true even given an ongoing trend toward greater funder collaboration and pooled funding during and after the pandemic, particularly around issues like fighting poverty and climate change.

Often, foundation leaders may lack the wherewithal to commit to a potentially resource-intensive partnership or can’t find common ground with partners around what constitutes “impact.” Others may be unwilling to share oversight, which one could argue is perfectly within their rights given amount of time they’ve devoted to fine-tuning their grantmaking machinery.

The funding leaders behind the Common App have no such qualms, however. “Any time funders collaborate, amazing opportunities open for conversation around shared goals and greater service to the community,” they said. “We can promote grant opportunities together, reaching ever broader and more diverse populations. We will be in a better position to coordinate in the face of future emergencies or disasters. We can listen and respond to our grantees and remain responsive to changing needs. The more we come together, the more we can accomplish.”

The foundation leaders are currently in conversation with other Bay Area arts funders and regrantors to bring them on board for future iterations of the Common App. As for what advice they’d give their peers outside the region who may be contemplating something similar, they suggest moving forward with the process even in the absence of total consensus.

“The ultimate goal for the Common App for the Arts is that every arts funder in the Bay Area will accept it, but if we had waited for every single funder to be ready at the same time or to agree on everything, we’d be stuck,” they said. “Start small, build off what is working, continue to adapt as your community grows, and eventually it will become impossible not to participate.”

Featured