Be Transparent & Responsive

When funders model transparency, power awareness, and vulnerability, it helps build relationships rooted in trust and mutual accountability.

Steps You Can Take

• Be clear up front about what you do and don’t fund, and let potential applicants know if meeting is not a good use of their time

• Give grantees ample notice if you are making any changes that will affect their funding

• Be open and honest about your own organizational struggles, questions, and thought processes

• Invite grantees to share their own challenges

• Be responsive to grantees’ emails and calls, and be particularly mindful of perpetuating trauma for BIPOC leaders, youth, and others who might feel disregarded or overlooked by other funders 

The Difference It Will Make

• Creates conditions for a more honest funder-grantee relationship

• Acknowledges power dynamics with the intention of creating a more balanced relationship

• Fosters a better understanding of grantees, their work, and their challenges

• Offers insight that can help funders be more effective in supporting grantees

What It Looks Like

“You begin to tilt the power balance a bit by ensuring the partner self-determines the use of resources, thereby meeting their own needs instead of ours. It signals the deep trust we have in our partners and opens the door for more honest dialogue, which reinforces trust. It enables us to focus on building a relationship based on mutual trust and accountability as opposed to one based on the transaction of resources. Over time, this allows us to sharpen our analysis, sharpen our practice.”

- Solomé Lemma, Thousand Currents