Chapter Nine

Presenting the Funding Document

When hiring program officers, few foundations consider prospects' thespian talents as one of the employment criteria, but perhaps they should, particularly those foundations that require oral presentations of funding documents. Not all foundations have such policies, and even those that do usually do not require that every funding document be presented. When there is an oral presentation, it is typically conducted by the lead program officer or sometimes by the entire team that has worked on the project. The audience is the internal funding committee or the board of trustees. As one program officer has remarked, “It is exactly like the theater, except that there is no makeup.”

It would not be theater, of course, without a good deal of stage fright. Numerous surveys have demonstrated that the number one fear Americans have is of public speaking, and that level of dread is inspired by the prospect of innocuous after-luncheon speeches to local service clubs. Imagine how much greater the anxiety becomes when thousands or even millions of dollars are on the line, not to mention many months of hard work. Program officers are haunted by the thought of wrecking the chances for funding of a potentially superb project by making a lousy presentation to the ultimate arbiters of funding.

Like most fears, this one is considerably overblown. Among the foundations that require presentations, few make them into adversarial affairs. Indeed, most go out of their way to make the experience as collegial as possible. Still, the fear persists, perpetuated by the folklore dispensed by some veteran program officers, who occasionally regale colleagues with stories of gaffes that doomed grant requests. These stories may well be true, but they belie the fact that in most foundations, most of the funding documents brought before committees or boards are approved. The percentage of approvals varies from institution to institution, but it would be a rare foundation indeed in which less than half of those proposed are funded.

The reason for this high success rate is most emphatically not that committees or boards are rubber stamps for funding requests. It is rather due to the careful preparations undertaken by the program officers. The committee or board has approved priorities for the foundation's grantmaking. Everything that is sent forward, with only rare exceptions, will match these approved priorities. Moreover, program officers carefully monitor reactions to funding documents as they are submitted. If a committee or a board expresses reluctance to see another funding document on a topic, it is certain that no more documents will be sent forward on that topic. In short, the high success rate is largely due to a rigorous process of self-selection. Although grantmakers take risks from time to time, mostly they send forward documents that should get approved. None of these facts, however, seem to cure the stage fright of the grantmaker who has been asked to make a presentation before a committee or board.