To Visit or Not to Visit, That Is the Question

In an ideal world, you would conduct a site visit for every project that the foundation is seriously thinking of funding. Interrelated factors—distance, expense, and time constraints—make that impossible, however. When considering a grant to an organization thousands of miles away, you will need to face the fact that conducting a site visit would take days to accomplish and would be very costly. Because program officers are chronically short of time, and because every dollar spent on travel and lodging is a dollar that the foundation cannot pay out in the form of a grant, it is impractical to visit every prospective project. Given this conundrum—that it would be ideal to visit all candidates for funding but not responsible to do so—it is useful to consider some guidelines to determine when a site visit makes sense and when one does not.

1.  Site visits usually should be reserved for projects that the foundation is leaning toward funding rather than for those that it is leaning against funding. If the proposal review process left you with serious qualms about an idea, laying out cash for a site visit generally becomes a case of throwing good money after bad. It is always possible, of course, that a site visit will reveal hidden gems that the proposal did not, but this does not happen frequently enough for the rate of return to justify the investment.

2.  Site visits should aim to maximize learning. If a proposal under consideration would fund the twelfth project in a series or cluster of grants, it would make less sense to visit the site than if it were to be the first project in a cluster.

3.  Site visits should be cost-efficient. If it would cost $2,000 to conduct a site visit for a $5,000 request, any benefits derived would not outweigh the expense. Even if the request is for a large sum or the trip would be inexpensive, you should not automatically elect to make a visit, but rather should weigh its potential benefits against its potential costs.

4.  Site visits must have a value that outweighs the foundation's opportunity costs. When you are on a site visit you are not doing other valuable and useful things, such as reading proposals or managing funded projects. A site visit that is not potentially valuable enough to justify these opportunity costs should not be conducted.

5.  Site visits should improve the quality of and the support for the proposed project and should verify the claims of the proposal describing that project. The site visit provides opportunities for you to fine-tune proposal ideas, make sure there is presidential and board support for the project within the institution applying for funding, and double-check on the reality of claims of competence and partnership.