The Foundation’s application form, which asks an organization to describe its objectives and provide a logic model or workplan for achieving them, is a work in progress that began during the period for which grantees were surveyed. Based on feedback from grantees, the application has gone through at least one revision since the time of the survey, and we are continuing to work to improve it.
The current application form is posted on this website. At its core are questions that ask a potential grantee to describe its goals and how it plans to achieve them. Especially because these are questions one might think an effective organization would ask itself independent of an application for funding, my colleagues and I were surprised at how many applicants have found it difficult to answer these questions.* One clue is that applicants seem to find it easier to answer them with respect to proposals for project grants than for general operating support grants.
Perhaps it is daunting to have to describe the theory of change underlying an entire organization, especially when it has multiple goals and strategies. In any event, we are continuing to work to simplify the application, and are hopeful about the efforts of organizations such as Innovation Network and TheoryofChange.org to assist organizations in creating such strategic plans.
* For a short essay on the difficulties of doing this, see "What the Nonprofit Sector Can Learn from Home Improvements," which will be published soon in The Nonprofit Quarterly.
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