Valeria Lee Practicum: Fundraising, JCP Summer Institute, 1991 July 12
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| Valeria Lee | It came in the mail in February. "I am writing to ask if you would be willing to participate in the institute. You will see from the enclosed working syllabus that your session is scheduled for Friday, July 12th. We have in mind a 30 to 40 minute session. Signed Dr. Raymond Gavins." | 0:01 |
| Valeria Lee | I accepted that invitation, and then I saw the program and it was "Welcome to this institute. You have a two hour session," and I thought, "Oh?" (laughs), "Maybe even three hours," he says, and I thought, "what shall we say and how can we make this work for you?" | 0:18 |
| Valeria Lee | I know fundraising, so if I don't tell you what you have a question about, then you need to ask me that question. Now, I want to tell you how I came to know fundraiser. I raised funds. That was the first thing that I did to help me learn that I could do it. | 0:41 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, I started raising money really with a public radio station in rural North Carolina up in Warrenton. It was begun by people in the community. None of us knew anything about raising money or operating a public radio station, but we knew that it was a means to doing some other things in our community that needed to be done. So the purpose of it wasn't to have a radio station, it was really to be involved with community development and finding that as a medium to facilitate the development of that community. Um, and I'll just share this with you. When I first started working with this notion, it was never my intention to either raise any money or to be involved with the operations radio station. My intention was to help this wonderful idea come to fruition and then, you know, sort of recede in the woodwork and listen for hours on end. | 0:58 |
| Valeria Lee | Well, life has a way of tricking you. And I was tricked because when I tried to think about recruiting some other people to do the real job, they said, sorry, you know, there's no pay. And I thought, well, of course not. It's gotta raise money. And then it was like, we don't know anything about radio. Well, none of us know anything about radio. And so it was from that point that I was sort of left with this wonderful idea that I was really committed to. And that meant getting involved myself. When we applied for the radio station, we told federal government that we knew we could raise something like $300,000 to get it going and operating for a year. And at the time that we submitted our application, we literally had raised $100. So when I tell you I had to learn fundraising, it was really the trial by fire. | 1:55 |
| Valeria Lee | And probably that's one of the things that I would just say to any of you today. If you've not yet done it, there's no way to to learn it, but to do it. So we can have five hours of seminar or five days, or five weeks, and hopefully you will gain something from this experience. But the bottom line is when you think about fundraising, there is no other way to approach it. But to do it, you can't intellectualize this one away because it won't work. Now, I would give you at the beginning what I consider to be the only secret there is to fundraising. There's only one. And I hope you've already uncovered it or, or discovered it. And that secret simply is ask. That's the secret. So we can all leave now because that's my message. Now, hopefully before the end of the day, you know, we will have some more corners on how to ask. | 2:42 |
| Valeria Lee | But the reason projects are not funded is people don't ask for funding. You don't ask the people who can support you. The one group that's the best fundraising group that I know in the world is the church in America. And they have one philosophy, and that is ask, they will ask you three or four times, and they do it very, very well. You know that churches are real good at it. So the secret for your project fundraising is the same one. The preachers use is the ask. So that's, that's one, one piece of it. The other part of it is to know who you're asking and why you're asking, and why people will give. Now, that's all very simple. I don't have, I mean, nothing about fundraising is any mystery. So part of what I say in, in any workshop or discussion that I have around fundraising is my purpose here primarily is to demystify the process as opposed to thinking, I can teach you something. | 3:36 |
| Valeria Lee | But it's really to demystify the process. Um, when the church people ask, you know, what they're going to, you know what they're offering up, you know, when the minister asks you either going to go someplace you don't want to go, or you can help go someplace. You do want to go if you contribute. So you have to figure out what it is that would make people give to your projects. And it doesn't matter whether it is a community project that you're involved with in your local areas, or whether it's a documentary that you're producing or it's a special service project that you have in mind. You have to have reasons for the people to give to you that fit them. And we'll talk a little bit more about that as as the afternoon progresses. So that's primarily what I have come to talk with you about this afternoon. | 4:40 |
| Valeria Lee | The message of asking how to ask what you're asking for, who to ask, and hopefully to help you then be successful in getting the funds to do the things that you want to do. My present job, I told you about the piece at WVSP, we did manage to raise enough money to get that radio station on the air. Uh, it was a combination of sources of support for the project. Um, it stayed on the air for 12 years. It's not on the air right now. People stop asking. Uh, and my present job is reviewing proposals, helping the foundation identify issues and areas of support, cons, consistent with our mission and and our restrictions as it were. And in essence, going out and sort of putting the word about what fundraising can be. That's what I do. Now, I am program officer with I guess it's the fourth largest foundation in the state, but one of those in the country that's noted for being a little bit more adventurous than many of the foundations. | 5:31 |
| Valeria Lee | And I don't know whether or not there are those of you who have benefited from resources from Z Smith Reynolds Foundation or not. But at any rate, that's my present work. So I've had both sides of the table, the asking side. And by the way, I still do that with different organizations that I'm a part of. And the review inside, I can't say yet that I'm in the real philanthropist category 'cause I don't have money to give (laughs). | 6:34 |
| Valeria Lee | So when I get there, I will really know about fundraising grants seeking and grants making. But for the moment, I am a lowly employee who helps to review projects and proposals. I get to see the right many, and I get to see what does or doesn't get funded within our context. But I also get to talk with other people in this field, people who are working in grants making throughout the country. | 6:58 |
| Valeria Lee | So some of what I'll be sharing with you today is not just from my own experience with Z Smith Reynolds Foundation or from grant seeking, but in the collegial context of meetings and so forth. Um, I hope to share some things with you that I've learned from my colleagues, sort of around, I've spread some things. And if any given time you've decide enough of this voice, I want to rest my eyes on something different, feel free to take a look at annual reports that I brought the Chronicle Chronicle of Philanthropy. I just brought three different copies of that. | 7:26 |
| Valeria Lee | I brought from NEH a copy of their guidelines around media, because I understand that would apply to all of you in some way or another. Uh, and so you can take a look there and they, you know, look through what they have to say about funding programs. And this is a 1989 guide to the Department of Education programs. I don't know if it would really apply to what you're doing, but at least you know that they do have that kind of listing or directory of programs that they fund. And you might be able to get that. And raising money from churches is just another article that I brought for each one of you, though. I brought a little pack called a fundraising worksheet. How to, and before it's all over, I'll give you one of those. | 7:57 |
| Valeria Lee | First I wanna set context about the climate in which you are asking. In 1990 we see on the one hand that budgets are under severe uh, well in, in crisis in many cases as it relates to both private and public sources of funding. Uh, our state still says we don't have any money. You know, I keep thinking about, oh, but somebody's spending some money. There's a whole lot being spent. But we know that there are budget crises throughout. | 8:41 |
| Valeria Lee | One of the things that I just became aware of though, is how many new nonprofits are coming into being. Last year there were within the United States 16,613 new nonprofit organizations. So those are 16,000 new competitors that you have in terms of who you will be seeking funds from new competitors. Now, that's not to say that the nonprofit sector grew by that number, because what the IRS doesn't tell you is who is no longer in business. | 9:13 |
| Valeria Lee | It will tell you how many new organizations have come into being on an annual basis that shows uh, just looking at those numbers from what the r s has on record as of 1989, I'm sorry, 88 to 89, these are the most recent figures that I have. Uh, it goes from 447,525 in 88 to 464,136 in 89. So there are right many nonprofits out there in the country. And even if the attrition rate says that these numbers are only two thirds, correct, you know, you got about 200, 300,000 people out there. | 9:45 |
| Valeria Lee | This does not include churches, I mean, agencies, organizations that are seeking funds for nonprofit charitable purposes. And to me, that's real sobering because it simply means that while the field may be, I think Peter Drucker said it was on a decline, the nonprofit sector was on a decline. It seems to me that somebody is still saying, we are gonna make this sector work for us or for our interests, and the number is growing. | 10:29 |
| Valeria Lee | So that's just a kind of context about what, what, who you are competing against and, and what the field looks like as it relates to nonprofit activity. Uh, I mentioned that because in most instances, in most instances, it has to be a nonprofit organization that's asking, and that's for obvious tax reasons. I know in your field you may be able to get individual grants, but even there, more often than not, it has to somehow get connected back to some nonprofit endeavor. | 10:58 |
| Valeria Lee | And so I think that that's an important kind of context to have. Another kind of context in terms of thinking through fundraising, is that the political climate, now, it might have been when I asked, the climate was right for a poor rural community to try something that wasn't being done in the country as it related to minority communities. And that dealt with public radio. | 11:31 |
| Valeria Lee | So to say that I might have been successful doesn't have anything to do with whether I did a good proposal perhaps, or that was only one factor. But the other part of it had to do with the political times. And I'm talking about in 73, it was a very different political climate than what we are dealing with in 91. And I don't think any of us can dismiss the political climate that we have to assess in deciding who we will ask for money and what we will ask for the money to do. | 11:56 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, every time I see that our dear president says, you know, another point of light and another volunteer to the fore, and I say to myself, who's, how are they paying their bills? You know, the nonprofit sector still requires some pay for the work that's being done in this sector. Uh, that's just a political reality. | 12:25 |
| Valeria Lee | And there are a lot of people who are saying, well, really, we don't need to be so concerned anymore about grants making. We need to be concerned about recruiting volunteers. Uh, I'll let you decide whether or not that's appropriate, but I think we still have to be thinking about ways to raise money while we are also thinking about ways to get other kinds of resources and support for the work we are doing. | 12:45 |
| Valeria Lee | A political reality that you have to deal with is sort of what's hot and what's not. You know, every (laughs)—there was a time when you could say, "Well, we are really gonna document the experiences of tobacco farmers in North Carolina." And that might've gotten you one kind of response. But in 1991, if you're gonna document the tobacco experiences in North Carolina, it probably should be tied to some economic development strategy 'cause in 1991, that's kind of the hot thing now, everybody's talking about how can we promote economic development. | 13:07 |
| Valeria Lee | And so in thinking about how you ask, you have to be conscious about what is a political climate that of, of political inclinations, even of the people that you're asking right now. I mean, it's like in almost all of these annual reports, you will see something related to empowerment. Well, that's, that's kind of the buzzword to mean whatever, I suppose the people who are writing annual reports, what it to mean because I'm not so sure what's, you know, what the true interest in empowerment may be. | 13:45 |
| Valeria Lee | You can see that they're talking about housing for the poor. They're talking about cultural diversity and in a number of these things that speak to sort of the, the trendy things at the moment. And it doesn't really matter whether we're talking about private fundraising, corporate fund, private foundation fundraising, corporate fundraising, public fundraising, and even from the churches, you know, the language of the day, the sort of hot button of the moment is a part of what influences the decision that the reviewer will be making. | 14:20 |
| Valeria Lee | So you have to be very much in tune to not only the political realities of the country, but the political context of the source of funding that you're going to. Uh, I'm seeing increasing interest in leadership development. So you're saying, well, I, all I really wanna do is a documentary. But if you don't frame it in a way so that it somehow ties into these values that are now sort of surfacing as important values in our country, you don't help your chances of getting your project funded no matter how good the project is. | 14:53 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, political activism, you know, I'm seeing leadership, political activism, community involvement, citizenship involvement. Well, I'm sure that as historians and other people out there who study people and trends, you know these better than I do. But I'm saying that the people in my field are looking at them in a very cursory way. | 15:31 |
| Valeria Lee | And somehow that impacts on the judgment that's made about your project and whether to fund it. That also suggests that if you think it's just about the project, I'm here to tell you it's a lot more than that. It's also about context, political context, social context. And it's important for you to incorporate that into your, into your request. | 15:49 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, in 1989 there was a 10% increase in giving to colleges. And when I saw that, I was rather surprised because I didn't know whether the, that was up in or out. You know, it kind of wavered. Sometimes giving to colleges goes way up and another time it's way down. Um, and there was also an 11% increase in giving to health charities. Now that again tells us about how people are looking at, at issues in our society. We know access to healthcare gets to be one of the biggies, not just for minority folk or low income people. | 16:11 |
| Valeria Lee | It's getting there to be a cross-cutting issue. That's another one of those political kind of considerations if you're thinking about documenting a community. And it may be that there is a cultural piece that's a particular interest to you somehow, if in your describing that it goes back to not only the health of the community, but the health of the people there, it gets real convoluted and we see through some of those weaving ins and weavings out. | 16:46 |
| Valeria Lee | But the fact of the matter is, we then know that at least you are connected to something that's real now in terms of what's going on in a community. Um, having said that, about those two areas that I suspect relate to some of your interests, toe giving in 1990 over 1989 went up by 5.75%. Early on, I had told you, I had mentioned that a lot of people are talking about budget decreases or budget cuts or shortfalls and all of those kinds of crisis words we live with. | 17:12 |
| Valeria Lee | But the fact of the matter is, more money is being given now than was being given two years ago. At least more money was being given in 1990 than was being given the year before. That is not keeping track with inflation and with a pattern that was developing over the past three years. So while it was up 5.75%, it's still down in terms of a relative increase over the past three years. | 17:48 |
| Valeria Lee | So the good news is people are still giving the bad news is the industry is not being supported at a level commensurate with the way it was growing and being supported in times past contributions to religious human services and arts groups fail to keep pace with inflation. Bad news for you, I'm sure. | 18:17 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, gains were posted in environmental international aid advocacy and education groups. And I don't know how that fits in. And sometimes I take time to go around and see what y'all do, but it, we may get to that later, but today I'm just gonna let you get the big picture about what's going on in our field. | 18:39 |
| Valeria Lee | United Way sort of is a bellwether what's going on in terms of not foundation giving or public agency giving, but just what people and businesses support and United Way revenues are up. In fact, I was kind of stunned to see the United Way gets $3 billion a year. You know, that's a lot. Seems I know there's a lot of needs that they try to relate to, but again, they're not keeping up with inflation. And what they are doing is supporting health, family services and youth and social—social development. | 19:00 |
| Valeria Lee | To me that becomes sort of, again, an indicator of where the people are in the country. When you look at where does United Way put its money because it's so dependent on the pulse of a community in terms of its fundraising. And so that becomes then a signal to you about, again, what is in and, and what's not. | 19:33 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, and then by the way, after those areas, you can get down to food, clothing, and housing. I'll bet you thought that United Way was doing a whole lot more to help poor people in those areas. Sorry. Uh, or in incoming job programs or daycare programs, they may get more attention 'cause they hit the heart. But the bottom line is that where they're really putting a lot more of their monies into some of these other areas. | 19:54 |
| Valeria Lee | The, the, the word that I hear, and I'm sure again, that you are more expert on this than I, is that the budget crisis at the state and federal levels are likely to get worse before they get better. And the fact of the matter is that those public dollars are still a primary source of support for nonprofit programs. So again, while we are looking at the nonprofit sector, growing the revenues from public sources declining, we still know that there's nothing else in spite of what they say about foundations and corporate given programs. | 20:16 |
| Valeria Lee | There's nothing else surfacing to replace those public dollars that have here to four been so vital for nonprofit organizational support. Now, before I go to another phase of this, I just wanna say that as far as I'm concerned, here's where the political nature of all of you has to just be again uh, an an active kind of well, you have to be more politically active yourselves than in the past. | 20:51 |
| Valeria Lee | And I'm saying that in, in a way that well, I'm just learning as I relate to some of the organizations here in North Carolina that we work with. We are seeing some organizations get support this time for the first time at a major level. And the reason they're getting it is because of the political work that's being done, the coalitional work that's being done, the kind of activist work that reminds me of history. | 21:20 |
| Valeria Lee | And I know some of you don't know what I'm talking about, but when we had to be a little more aggressive and assertive and a lot more present, that kind of activity is again required if you are going to have support for the nonprofit efforts that you are concerned about. | 21:46 |
| Valeria Lee | What am I really saying is that the order of the day obviously is a squeaky wheel. And so the louder you can squeak in terms of getting support for your program, the more likely you are to get support for it, your program. Uh, and the more people you have making noise with you, the more likely you are to get attention and support for your program. | 22:02 |
| Valeria Lee | It's the old bottom line thing that says, you know, we got to be involved in order to get any kind of a positive response. Uh, it means that people who perhaps have here to fore wanted to stay more closely to the pure project of program production or teaching or somehow being involved in what was the work you prepared yourself to do will have to be more involved with community people, with other activists, whatever their discipline may be. | 22:23 |
| Valeria Lee | And seek public support for those projects that have leading to you. I mean, we know what happened when, when the signal went out and they said the arts funding is gonna go down to anything that speaks of controversy. There's a national chill that happens. It gets harder to get money for anything that's not very conservative and traditional. | 22:51 |
| Valeria Lee | And so it requires activism on your part. And you say, well, nonprofits can't do that. I can't do that as an employee of the university. If you can't, then you have to find someone else to do it for you. You know how to organize. 'cause you wouldn't be here today, in my view, unless you'd figured out some real good organi organizing strategies. And that's still a part of our political reality. Uh, in the nineties, excuse me— | 23:11 |
| Speaker 2 | Before you turn the page, you were about to give us a figure on the United Way increase. | 23:36 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, the amount is $3 billion and I will have to get the exact increase over the year before it is up to $3 billion. It still lags inflation. Um, and one thing I didn't tell you that I was going to tell you is where that money came from. And 68% of that money comes from individuals. Uh, 25% of it comes from corporations. | 23:41 |
| Valeria Lee | The thing called other, which can be anything from uh, interest income to special specials of some sort is 6%. And you may be surprised to know that from my sector, the foundation sector, it's only 1%. And by the way, I have the numbers for the percentage of increase for United Way. We just know that it's somewhere, my memories is about 3.6%, but I'm swear to that (laughs) | 24:08 |
| Valeria Lee | So I've talked some about sort of the political climate the economic scene. You, again, I'm, I'm sure you're most familiar with that. But the one thing that you may not know is that large foundations are holding their own in terms of profitability. | 24:41 |
| Valeria Lee | So if you think that, you know, Ford is being is about to go out of business because they are not maintaining a good portfolio wrong, they're doing fine. So the big foundations are doing all right. | 24:58 |
| Valeria Lee | In fact, our foundation is giving away more money now than ever, even in these economic times. Now we don't know what it's gonna be for '92, but for '91 we're giving away the, well, last year was the best year ever. '91 may be down slightly, but there were just some things about the the RJR buyout that affected last year and the year before. But it is not just those of us that might be connected, say with the tobacco money in North Carolina that are seeing a sort of a sustained level of growth actually is nationally where big foundations are continuing to be profitable and to have good returns of their investment. | 25:11 |
| Valeria Lee | That is not the case for small foundations. So if you've been going thinking about approaching uh, a family foundation that may somehow be giving in the neighborhood of 100,000 to a million dollars a year, the outlook is not that bright that they are growing. | 25:52 |
| Valeria Lee | In fact, I know the uh, Burt Mayor Meyer Foundation died in Florida. Uh, there's a guy from North Carolina who's their executive director. They're based on UPS money. Well, you know what happened when the Gulf Crisis came, you know, they are not making grants for a year because they were hit so hard by that experience of declining profits at UPS. | 26:11 |
| Valeria Lee | And that is not unusual for small foundations, particularly those that are somehow severely impacted by the energy crisis or other kinds of political activities that may be happening. The large ones, however, seem to be fairly well insulated from market swings and are continuing to be major sources of support for nonprofit activities. Another kind of thing that's in right now in terms of funding is collaboration. | 26:33 |
| Valeria Lee | Now it used to be cooperation, it used to be communication. But now everywhere I go, people are talking about collaboration. And whether it is between univer the academic setting or universities, colleges, whatever it may be, the academia setting and communities or public agencies or whatever may be the partnerships that can be developed. And I can't tell you how much I hate to have to use partnerships one more time in my life, but it's kind of like right now, partnerships, collaboration, those are the words that continue to come at us when we are talking about effective grants making. | 27:01 |
| Valeria Lee | So I'm sharing that at this time. Any way that you can show that you are connected to something else other than what it is as your primary reference point, I would say the better your chances of getting funding for your interest and efforts. Um, and today the way collaboration is being talked about is a little different from what I used to hear it. It is not just simply I'm telling you what I'm doing and you're telling me what you're doing. And we call it a collaboration. Now it's "I'm, here's my piece of action on the table, where is yours?" | 27:42 |
| Valeria Lee | And real collaboration means everybody's putting something into the pot right now as opposed to just sharing what it is that each of us is doing. And that's a slightly different twist from what I grew up hearing about. You know, I could tell the schools that we were gonna do a program around um, or some science project of radio, but I didn't have to necessarily try to get them to buy into it by contributing to it. | 28:14 |
| Valeria Lee | You know, I could probably raise money for that effort just by simply saying, we are working with the schools. Now the funder, whether it's public or private, wants to know, well what's the school doing to help with this effort? So collaboration now is getting to be a whole lot different animal from what I knew it was say 10 years ago. | 28:40 |
| Valeria Lee | I don't know what your experience has been in fundraising around this, but I'm just saying to you those are now, you know, like the hot words that everybody uses, we see those two partnerships and collaboration in ways that I didn't see them when I joined the foundation six years ago. So that's really been a change I think in the climate around fundraising for your purposes. And I'm assuming, let me just ask before I assume and really mess up. How many of you need to raise money for projects? Okay. As opposed to how many of you are also obliged to raise money for the organization? | 28:58 |
| Valeria Lee | So most of you are looking for project specific money. Are most of you also coming out of university's academic settings? | 29:51 |
| Valeria Lee | Okay. Then in most instances it is that entity that has to raise the money for your project. I mean, that's obviously something you've already experienced. Um, but project money is really, truly easier to raise than organizational money is. | 29:59 |
| Valeria Lee | And that's the case throughout. I mean, everybody wants to save the world with one grant that's gonna be over in one year. That's kind of like, you know, if I had to give you the wisdom of the field, it's gonna take three years and they still may not solve the problem. My God. Well, very, it's a right old problem. You know, what makes us think it can be solved in this in a short period of time. | 30:18 |
| Valeria Lee | But that's kind of the way funders, and I think that's true of public and private sector funding, they want to hear it, you know, "Wow, you gonna solve this problem in a year with one grant that's really only half of what you asked for?"(laughs) | 30:39 |
| Valeria Lee | So that's kind of the dilemma that we all have to live in. And, and, but the reality, again, of what we have to live with, but still, I would say to you is that project funding is easier to come by. And what you have to know is whether or not you can get your project funded on its merits as a project or whether you have to get the project funded on its merits for its greater impact. 'cause some of you as | 30:53 |
| Valeria Lee | Say filmmakers will no doubt have the best idea for the most wonderful film that, that we would ever want to see. But you haven't connected it to the community that somehow would say, and as a result of this, here's the difference it's gonna make. And it's real, real hard from foundations, I think, to get funding for those kinds of products. Unless those products are connected with a greater cost, the the, the, the product can't be the end. It's the cause that's the end. | 31:22 |
| Valeria Lee | And that gets to be real hard for artists particularly, or even historians who just trying to get the facts, ma'am, they don't care. You know, we just had to discover and and disclose. But you really do have to go beyond that to show what difference is it going to make. And for project funding that's particularly challenging. I think sometimes when people are really much more in tune to thinking about a good production no matter the medium. | 31:55 |
| Valeria Lee | But I just would have to remind you that if you really wanna get it funding, I'd suggest that you figure out, especially in the private foundation sector, how to connect that project to other outcomes. And maybe you do that because you're already politically aware and all of that sort of thing. But if you're not doing it, I would suggest that you really examine how you can say, here's what I want to do and here's why I want to do it. In the context of more often than not the needs of a people that you are trying to somehow impact | 32:25 |
| Valeria Lee | The I mentioned collaboration and I mentioned partnership is kind of words that you will have to contend with when you start putting your proposal ideas together. But I would also say that in grantsmanship in general, you have to really make it sound like you've discovered it. First time innovation. I am so well, I have seen so many tired projects that were innovated. I can't tell you tired. 'cause you saw that it was the same innovation that you read about or that you might have even done five years ago. | 33:02 |
| Valeria Lee | But then you have to open up your mind again and say, well, it might be innovative in this context. I mean, you can't imagine how we try to justify your calls of innovation, but we do, especially when we care. And, but innovation is still one of the words that we always sort of put upon you that we are looking for. We are looking for innovation. The, the more innovative it is, the better. But sometimes I know things get called that are really truly not innovative. Uh, but at any rate, | 33:34 |
| Valeria Lee | The the new way it gets described by the way, is not so much that it's a new idea or a new way, but I was reading in one of these annual reports, I think it's out of Rockefeller, where they are saying, really all innovation means is changing a system or situation or framework whose consequences are unsatisfactory. | 34:07 |
| Valeria Lee | And I thought my mind (laughs) I'm sure y'all can do some documentary on the language of grants making, but, or fundraising. But that isn't really what I used to think innovation meant. I don't know what y'all thought at there, but when I saw that this, this would apply to anything that you just want to do to have some positive impact or to change something that you think is negative. | 34:33 |
| Valeria Lee | So I just want you to know that in the language of fundraising right now, when they talk about innovation, you do not necessarily have to be discovering a new way to slice bread or even that it has to be sliced. It's just simply that you want to change a system or a situation or a framework whose consequences are unsatisfactory. And that is really a theme that continues to crop up in many grants making agencies and organizations. Another kind of common theme in terms of grantsmanship is relevance. | 34:53 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, and it goes back to something I said earlier about documentarians, but you really do have to answer why is it important and to whom is it important? So the relevance question is really a relevant one. Uh, it is really that you just have to deal with the question of why is it important and to whom is the project or product important? And if it's just your colleagues, make sure that you're going to an organization that supports that kind of work. Because if you're going for general fundraising, it's really not important that you're doing it for posterity to say, to go on the shelf or to impress your colleagues or to get another degree. I'm just telling you straight off that for general foundation purposes, it has to be important for another reason, thereby therefore be relevant for another reason. | 35:28 |
| Valeria Lee | This one gets a little tricky for documentarians, but it has to do with the issue of replicability. Um, for the documentarian, the replicability issue is more relevant perhaps if you're doing training, if you're really trying to get student projects underway and you're saying, if I can have this a hundred thousand dollars, what then I will be able to do is to, to do this same work in 10 other communities or five other places. But replicability is another one of those themes that you will hear in terms of what foundations are looking to fund. And I would just suggest to you that if you're just trying to do one discreet project, you can't fudge it and say, well, you're gonna do another one just like it. 'cause that would work. But then certainly if it means you're doing some outreach kinds of activities, you can indeed talk about how what you learn can be applied to other settings or to other colleagues totally out of your area. | 36:20 |
| Valeria Lee | They may be other professionals, they may not even be documentarians, but somehow what you are doing would be connected. Uh, I'm, I'm sorry, can be done by other groups at other places or with other people. Um, in our work, we also ask about or want to know about the quality. Um, is it just gonna be a good project? Uh, is it good work that will stand up not only to the scrutiny of scholars, but is it good in the context of the people that you were directing it to? | 37:22 |
| Valeria Lee | So again, the quality issue is one that seems real elementary, I'm sure to you. But I do want you to know that for those of us who are laypeople that will be reading your proposals in the main, it's still an issue that you will have to help us understand how quality is a factor in the work that you'll be producing. | 37:53 |
| Valeria Lee | The next one is the next area in terms of grantsmanship is again an area that I find particularly challenging for scholars. And the reason it's such a challenge is because you have learned a different way of talking about your work and clarity. Just really talking about what you do is a challenge that I many of you have not yet mastered. And the reason I know it is 'cause I read your proposals, I don't know what y'all are doing (laughs), it is not clear to me. Now you can say, well that's, that's my little brain problem. It is, but you have to deal with people like me. | 38:10 |
| Valeria Lee | Therefore, it is your problem to make it clear, you are not sending except to NEH and perhaps NEA, maybe to uh to Department of Education. But when you send projects to corporate donors or proposals rather to corporate giving bread grants or the foundations, the bet is it's a person who's a generalist that will read it first and say, oh, this sounds exciting, and may pass it on to a specialist or a technical advisory group to review. | 38:53 |
| Valeria Lee | But if you haven't gotten it past the secretary, forget it. Now in our offices is the program staff that reviews it. But you have to presume that the person who will first read it and decide—in fact in our offices, is also true, the first person who will first look at that proposal and decide whether or not it is complete's our secretary. | 39:26 |
| Valeria Lee | Now we have some very good administrative support people, but you can't make that assumption, particularly for small foundations. So you have to assume that the person who will first read your project and will say, Hmm, or oh, you know, whatever it might be, the, the sound that says, I think this is good or not, will have no knowledge of your field, perhaps. | 39:51 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, it doesn't just apply to those of you who are scholars and PhDs. I must say that in many areas it is a common problem that you think there is a way to write a proposal that somehow uses a language different from what's normally used out in conversation. (laughs) | 40:15 |
| Speaker 4 | Sometimes that's what people are trying to do. I would think— | 40:36 |
| Valeria Lee | You do yourself a disservice, (laughs), lemme tell you, you truly do yourself a disservice because I understand that it might sound important if all of the words are at least 10 levels. | 40:48 |
| Valeria Lee | But chances are even the program officers now, we move beyond the the first review, the first opening of it to, to determine whether or not it's complete. The second level. You know, you will have professional people reading it, and when they say this is full of it, it's just like, now I bet all of you talk something at one point or another and had to grade that theme, and you were able to discern straight away what was indeed substance and what wasn't. | 41:00 |
| Valeria Lee | And if you just put yourself back and say, and by the way, I didn't tell you that that's the way I approached my first proposal, was it was just another thing paper that one of you would have to read. I said, I know, I know how to write for for school. You know, I I'm a student, I'm not, I know how to do this. And anyway. | 41:31 |
| Valeria Lee | If you just think about your own experience and somehow the way you felt when that student was really gonna snow you and you said—now this isn't insult, just know that chances are somebody like you is gonna read that proposal, who will be able to see beyond the, the, the words. | 41:50 |
| Valeria Lee | I'm not suggesting that you don't use the appropriate language, I'm just saying in doing so, make sure it is clear and that clarity prevails more so than vocabulary. And I think that it will certainly enhance your evidence. Uh, there is a project, and this one doesn't come out of academia, it comes out of another community. There's this organization that is really wonderful and I have found myself on more occasions than I can tell you, being a translator of a different language to, to our community. | 42:11 |
| Valeria Lee | And I said, well, what they really mean is (laughs). And of course I have proposals translated to me all the time because it is clear that whoever wrote it was was somewhere else. Rather than just communicating, you know, as people to people, that's a part of demystifying this stuff that I really want you to put into your bank and take home with you. Make it clear. And if you think it's clear to be sure that it is, ask someone else in your—to read it. | 42:43 |
| Valeria Lee | I started to say in your field, and that would be good, but then ask someone else to read it who's not in your field. And I can't tell you what a difference it can make in the quality of what you present, because then if someone in your field can read it and understand it, and I'm not talking about changing it to be grant worthy, I'm just really now talking about clarity and then someone out of your field can read it, then chances are it will be, it will be clear. Yes. Um, | 43:14 |
| Speaker 5 | I had an opportunity some time ago to, to spend a year working as a member of the social science staff of the national private foundation. One of the things that I was impressed by and I wanted to what extent this to this, this applied to other foundation law. Just that experience there impressed by the willingness of program offices, not only to people personally in terms of coming by to talk specifically with people who had ideas or had an interest in doing something for which they wanted to see if there was some interest part the foundation, but also to receive, you know, short uh, concept papers just to look at with no commitment whatsoever. To what extent was that experience one that was an exception? Or are program officers willing to talk with people and receive short descriptions of things, of ideas that they had in mind prior to even submitting the courses? | 43:48 |
| Valeria Lee | It really varies foundation by foundation, not so much program officer by program officer's, kind of like the culture of the particular foundation or the corporate giving program. Um, we are at Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, willing to do both. Uh, when someone sends me something for review, I take it as no obligation on my part to have to review it. I, I, I know that I'm supposed to acknowledge the letter and sometimes that gets to be troublesome, but but I don't take it as an obligation to review it and give feedback. I try to, and so does everyone else on our staff, but more often than not, what we will simply say is we see no reason why you should not apply. Now, if we see that the group is asking for money, in our case for major equipment purchases, let's say it is a documentary project. And what you really wanna do is raise, you know, get a new camera or, or the top of the line mixing uh, audio mixer, whatever I, I may call up or say, I would bring to your attention the low priority that we give to equipment purchases. But again, give it always a chance for the applicant to say, I have to have this, this is the most critical aspect. | 45:01 |
| Valeria Lee | I never take it personally. If the answer you get isn't the one you would hope to receive, it's just the way we work. And so I think sometimes that it's much more reassuring that it has real impact on the outcome in our foundation for a person who wants to apply to come and talk in advance. | 0:01 |
| Valeria Lee | Cause we are very open, you know, if it fits, if you can apply, you can apply and we will give you feedback. But more often than not, we'll say, if this is your need, then that's what you oughta ask money for. And, and, but I do know that, that, that varies. | 0:21 |
| Speaker 2 | Building on Doug's question, I would guess that the quality of grant guidelines varies very greatly from foundation 1 to foundation 2, does it not? | 0:34 |
| Valeria Lee | I don't think so. We all will ask the same things. Now, we will vary in terms of how much we will allow you to tell us, but we will even tell you that more often than not. I mean, we say don't send more than three pages in your proposal. | 0:45 |
| Valeria Lee | You know, as for scholars, (laughs) "Do you really mean three pages?" "Yes, we do." | 1:00 |
| Speaker 2 | Some of the students— | 1:07 |
| Valeria Lee | Exactly, we really do. But I can't tell you. "Do you really?" "Yes, yes." | 1:08 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, the other point around just general grantsmanship has to do with costs. And that is, can you justify the expense for the benefits that would be derived from it? So the cost effectiveness issue is a very relevant one, and it transcends any grants uh, source. I'm gonna go back and talk some about the, the proposal piece and the strategies for getting a project funded. | 1:15 |
| Valeria Lee | But just briefly, let me say that you should always deal with grants as a part of a larger fundraising strategy. And you should always deal with fundraising as a part of a larger organizational strategy. And that seems real obvious, I'm sure to you. But it's really important to not just say, I can write a proposal for my project and somehow assume that you don't need to connect it to other organizational issues because they can't just be dissected that way. | 1:45 |
| Valeria Lee | So the fundraising, the grantsmanship is, but one part of fundraising, obviously. But the second part of that is fundraising should just be seen in the same way as you look at other dimensions of an organization. The program side, the public relations side the development activities, which include fundraising and the program and activities and the administrative work of the organization have to all go together. | 2:22 |
| Valeria Lee | And it really gets to be an issue when it comes to accounting and reporting and being accountable for the funds that you will receive. So if you just think it's about raising funds and it's not connected to other kinds of evaluation and, and reports, then again, you are just setting yourself up to have that as perhaps a one-time deal. It's done and no more. But even the organization that you get to ask money as a as a fiscal agent for you, gets to be real important because they establish records with funders, whether they're public or private funders. | 2:50 |
| Valeria Lee | And so in some instances, I know that for you it's just a question of, gosh, you know, all I really want to do is get this project funded. But still it has to be seen in terms of the organizational relationships that you have that so that give validity to this project. You want to get funded. | 3:28 |
| Valeria Lee | And in that larger fundraising kind of perspective, it's really important to think about other types of support that go beyond the money. And early on I talked about volunteerism. And I'm not naive to say that dollars don't make the difference. They do. So we got that straight. But in your overall resource development, it's important to look beyond dollars to other types of support. | 3:47 |
| Valeria Lee | And it just may be, in your case, you don't need to raise money for a camera. All you really need to do is find someone who will work with you or a a cassette recorder. You can just, if it's a project that doesn't require ongoing kinds of needs for that particular item, you perhaps can get them from other places. And you don't have to spend your time trying to raise another thousand dollars. Um, supplies and materials uh, computers, so many things are available either on loan basis or as gifts, which in some way will be more attractive to the person that you are pursuing for support than just coming up with some money. | 4:14 |
| Valeria Lee | I b m sometimes is much more known for giving you access to their professional staff than they are for giving you money to go out and buy a particular bit of consultancy services that you might need. So just know that in thinking about resource development, and I've sort of changed it from just fundraising, but look beyond just the dollars to other kinds of support that can be even more valuable than just the dollars that you might raise. | 4:57 |
| Valeria Lee | And I'm real hesitant to say that because I knew that I had to raise money when I was at WVSP. I didn't have to raise people. I had to raise money. But I also found that by doing the people connecting or asking people to loan me something or give me something else other than money, I was able sometimes to get people to be helpful even later on in the dollar raising business. | 5:25 |
| Valeria Lee | And so it is more than just the dollars, it is also a larger kind of view that you, that I think is imperative in being successful at this. And that is keeping my perspective on how you can get what you need without buying it. And if you don't have to buy it, then you don't have to have money for it. You can get the support in other ways. | 5:49 |
| Valeria Lee | Now, if you need to stand up, 'cause I've been talking for a long time, you can do that and I'll stand up and then we can all sit back down. I don't know if y'all need to break or not. Um, or two, five minutes. Yeah, about five minutes or so. Yes. Oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. So what I also am gonna do is obviously, again, repeat some things that you've already experienced, but it is also my experience that we will not harm ourselves by being reminded of some very basics about grantsmanship. | 6:08 |
| Valeria Lee | The proposal itself is your, your, your dissertation, your term paper. And the elements of it will be the same in any proposal that I've ever seen. You gotta say who's applying whether, and more often than not, it would be an organization. The reason you're applying the purpose, your goals, what it is you're trying to do, your plan, your project design, your evaluation and method, your evaluation methodology, you know, just what it is you, not why, but what it is you're going to do and how you will know you have done what it is you said you were going to do. | 6:43 |
| Valeria Lee | And then how much is it gonna cost, which has to do with the budget. Every application that I've seen has those very same elements stated one way or another, no matter how complicated they make it sound. That's really the bottom line of what's there, who you are, why you want to do something, who you gonna serve what is it you're going to do, how are you gonna do it? How much is it gonna cost every time? | 7:23 |
| Valeria Lee | And I told you about early on the proposal I first wrote, I just took into, took those little things they taught me in little that was central and in my high school, you know, who would then why the basic things of the journalism? And that became the proposal. | 7:50 |
| Valeria Lee | The other thing I would say, if you look through any of these annual reports, NEH, department of Education, NEA, every entity that will give you some money will tell you what they want to know. And the form in which they want to know it. | 8:05 |
| Valeria Lee | Now, just, I don't, every now where, where it gets a little tricky, and you have to be more creative in, in teasing things out, is when it comes to individual solicitations and raising money from donors and individuals and corporate giving programs. 'cause more often than not, you have to figure out how it's in their interest. And they don't always tell you how what you want to do compliments their interest. But in corporate giving programs, I do think that it's a little more difficult to tease out the reasons and the process and the guidelines around the given programs than it is for foundations or other kinds of organized giving programs. | 8:20 |
| Valeria Lee | And I said that because I keep, I am often asked, well, you know, what, how, what, what is it? What is it you really want to know? Every entity will tell you. And not only will they tell you what they want to know the form, they want to know it. They will tell you others who've been successful. And therefore you can figure it out. You can figure it out a lot just by seeing what else is funded. You can see whether or not it's worth your going to that source just by looking at the grant's list and seeing what else was funded. Um, and so I can't emphasize enough that if you're going to be in the grant seeking business to pay very particular attention to annual reports, which is the best source for the most recent and most updated guidelines and procedures for seeking funding, go get an annual report. We love to give them away. | 8:58 |
| Valeria Lee | There's a competition within the Council on foundations where they judge the prettiest one and the best one and the most effective one. This happens to be ours for this year. Uh, but I did, like I said, bring some others. I mean, this Rockefeller thing, if you wouldn't mind holding that up now, is that pretty? I thought all of you would just, Hmm. | 9:48 |
| Speaker 2 | The art looks like barnwood. Is it? It looks like it. I thought so. A good take off. | 10:10 |
| Valeria Lee | See, this is a real photograph of North Carolina sun (audience laughs) real documentary— | 10:20 |
| Speaker 3 | Made in Virginia (laughs) | 10:27 |
| Valeria Lee | No, no. Uh, but in any of these, you know, it, it is almost like a, a new industry kind interest area communications, they call it, you know, the annual report, getting the message out, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is though, that the message is there in the error report about what the funder wants to know. | 10:32 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, if they want to know all of your histories, they will say, please send a vita. We don't ask for that. Some people do. And therefore you need to know then, well, how many pages do they want? Do they really want to know everything I've thought about or just things that have won award? You know, figure it out. And you can almost tell by the way they ask for legitimizing you as it were, you know, what kinds of what kinds of expressions of your credentials are they looking for? | 10:57 |
| Valeria Lee | The other thing I would say is to research the funding source. Know what the priorities are. Uh, I don't know if you've seen the production call. We don't fund media. Well, you know, any of those programs that say we don't fund media, what you need to go to them with your documentary on is not funded media, but funding something else that's related to what it is you are producing the documentary on. | 11:30 |
| Valeria Lee | So, know what the priorities are, what they will or won't fund. We say we give very low priority to capital campaigns, endowments and to support a physical acqui equipment acquisitions. We're upfront about it. And by the way, the one thing I know about foundations is more often than not, they'll tell you the truth about what's important and what's not important to them. I'm not saying it's not important, but, you know, just in terms of priorities. | 11:52 |
| Valeria Lee | But look for that either in the overview that comes out of the annual report. You can tell priorities by what grants are made by just looking at the grants list to see whether they support the research phase, the production phase, the dissemination phase, the publicity phase. But you can tell that 'cause they will tell you, we supported the Center for Documentary Studies to do A, B, C, or d I mean, it's laid out there for you. | 12:16 |
| Valeria Lee | The procedures for applying goes back to the question you raised earlier at Babcock, which is a foundation right across the street from us and very much connected to the St. Rose family. They really do like to have preliminary conversation. And it becomes a part of what they ask you to do is to talk to them before even making a submission. We don't have that in our case, but we will tell you whether or not it's necessary. | 12:40 |
| Valeria Lee | And we also will make ourselves open to you. And then what you also want to research are the persons or the influential others that will impact on the decision. And whether it is the board itself as an advisory group, a technical advisory group, a friend of some of those people, I mean, the bottom line still, as you know, it is people give money to people and the organization they're connected with is important, but it still gets to be that kind of thing. | 13:04 |
| Valeria Lee | And so raising money still gets to be very much personal kind of activity. So I would say as well as you can research the people who are connected with the funding source you know, it is really a kind of sales game. And we all know that. And we are buying good ideas and we are buying projects and making investments, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. | 13:32 |
| Valeria Lee | So if you know the interest of the people who are making the decisions, board and staff, in some instances, it's the board that really is the deciding factor, particularly gets the case. I think for large grants and smaller grants, the staff has a lot of influence. | 13:56 |
| Valeria Lee | By the way, there was a book written at University of Virginia, it's a dissertation coming out of Charlottesville, where this woman is, has researched three foundations to see how the process really works internally as it relates to higher education. Uh, I have a copy of it in my office, and if some of you want to know about it, I can tell you, I don't think it's particularly revealing, but it's, it's a nice study. Um, but again I know some foundations where the board only sees what the staff gives them to see. I will tell you, in our case, our board sees the proposal, the application, the budget, and uh, your in the a in the application, there's the summary. So our board really does see what you say, not what we interpret you are saying. | 14:13 |
| Speaker 3 | But with [indistinct], they that because of the numbers that they get. That's right. | 15:00 |
| Valeria Lee | And that, and, and that is the case with even many of the smaller foundations and don't advise folks. You find out that the board only sees the synopsis and the words that the staff gives Nathan in cases like that. And in my advice to simply presume in a large foundation that the board will never see your words. They will only see it through the eyes of a staff person. Of | 15:10 |
| Speaker 3 | Course, I know of one instance where that happened, foundation that happened, and person proposal gotta be seen by the board because the staff had resurrected and given an evaluation, which meant that it couldn't be rejected by the, by the staff. And because the board wanted to see, and they eventually funded | 15:35 |
| Valeria Lee | The foundations that I know best in North Carolina, the board will see them. If they want to see them routinely, you know, they'll see a synopsis | 16:01 |
| Valeria Lee | Or they'll see a summary that maybe you will have written. And then they will ask for the full proposal. We just happen to be, and now we have 350 proposals per cycle, and we have two cycles a year. Our board sees every proposal. I didn't say summary, but that's kind of a new, that's the way our board wants to operate. | 16:10 |
| Valeria Lee | Part of what I think we are both saying is there are no rules that they go by. It is very much within the purview of the organization that's reviewing your proposal to decide what their rules are going to be. And in the foundation community, you know, it's real hard to make generalizations. That's a part of what makes it the, the unique sector that it is. They take pride in being autonomous and independent and, and free in making those kinds of decisions and setting their own directions and policies. | 16:28 |
| Valeria Lee | A very much unregulated field, I can tell you. Um, but it is important for you to try to figure it out ahead of time because it's no point you're wasting a lot of time on board people. If in fact they really are only gonna put a stamp on it and say, approve to prove no. Or, you know, agree, agree, agree unless you know that you're gonna have to get to them in order to have happen exactly what you've described, to bring something up that would otherwise be dead. And that's where the board relationship can be very important. | 16:59 |
| Valeria Lee | But just say across the board you just need to know how the decisions get made as best you can find that out. And usually people will tell you what their policy is or they may say, well, we don't discuss it. It's always a board decision. Uh, still, it'll usually be disclosed just in terms of how much the board will see. | 17:30 |
| Valeria Lee | Now, the reason we say three pages goes back to what I just described earlier, 350 proposals. Can you imagine what would happen with 10 pages per 350 proposal and three 50 proposals? You know, you don't want to be proposal number 210 (laughs) | 17:49 |
| Valeria Lee | So to keep the ground level at all, you know, and you don't even want to be proposal 210 out of 350 with three pages. Imagine what it would. And by the way, we have a staff of three people that will be reviewing these, and then the board of 11. So you get the picture there. So all of that other stuff you send is very helpful to staff. But more often than not, that's where, where it stops. And so when you send a great big box I say, oh my God, (laughs) Okay? | 18:04 |
| Valeria Lee | The other piece, this, this I said one secret earlier was asking, the second secret is follow the rules. And I know that sounds simple, but do follow the rules, follow the guidelines, the time, those requirements about space, what to send and what not to send. Just submit the proposal according to the guidelines. | 18:37 |
| Valeria Lee | And that's really saying follow the rules in tools and resources. I feel that you're familiar with most of them, that you will need to deal with foundation center library, et cetera, et cetera. | 18:58 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, but a major resource for you, I would think would be looking at credits or projects that are similar to yours now, get beyond what they said and how they did it. Just see who funded them. 'cause they are more likely to want to fund some more of that. Uh, and, and I know when I was at WVSP I would read all of the credits on any public television show. I'd make note of the credits coming out of N P R. I'd make note of credits coming out of any place. 'cause that was a statement to me about where the money was for projects similar to my ideas that I wanted funded. | 19:08 |
| Valeria Lee | And I would say to you that in addition to the regular list that you get, just follow the credits. Um, in some ways, you know, the follow up after you've submitted your proposal, I don't know, except to say, call and ask in terms of an appointment with a decision maker. It's always a good idea to call and ask. And if they say, we don't do that, then that's fine. At least they will remember that you were real interested. | 19:41 |
| Valeria Lee | You didn't just, you know, pick it out of a listing and say, I'm gonna submit to this group. Um, and if you, and, and this sounds real self-serving, but it's amazing how many people would just assume it's not important. But for some people it's real important. And that is to simply say that after you've taken the person's time, let them know that you're appreciated. | 20:08 |
| Valeria Lee | And I feel real badly saying that. 'cause I know that, you know, y'all are professionals and all that sort of thing. But I'm just gonna say that any kind of follow up that says, you know, when Iris wrote to me the other day and said, "I'm so glad you stopped by the office. It made me feel so good." I thought, "Oh gosh, what a friendly thing to do," (laughs). | 20:29 |
| Valeria Lee | And so we had already had a friendly conversation. I'm no more or no less human than any of you. And you know how you feel when somebody's, you've been involved with somebody and they take the time to say, I appreciate you're taking the time to be with me and share whatever information you have. That's kind of the mechanics of grant of the proposal, the mechanics around fundraising and other way, my God, you just really need to hire somebody. | 20:44 |
| Valeria Lee | If you're gonna do a direct mail campaign, go to an expert. I mean, it is really hard to think about. It's such a science now, and it's so expensive to do good effective direct mail campaigns except to your friends. My general advice is to, to just at the beginning, at least have some expert help you who does that sort of thing. | 21:09 |
| Valeria Lee | If you're going to do events to raise money, treat it like Las Vegas. Say, if I can't lose it, I can't spend it on an event. 'Cause you know, you plan a wonderful concert outdoors and you know what happens (laughs), and you just say they required a guarantee that's nonrefundable regardless of the elements. So just know that when you're doing uh, events, that if you have to put money up, you have to be able, not willing, but able to lose it. | 21:30 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, the, the, the fundraising from church communities, I don't think it's very different. My experience is it's not very different from raising it from private uh, foundations. It's, it's very personalized. Uh, there's a lot of money that they give, particularly for the kinds of projects that you are involved with. They are not going to get your building, but they will in fact sometimes get you some products produced. | 22:04 |
| Valeria Lee | Uh, you know, with 20, $30,000 churches were very important to survive with WVSP, not the local churches. They gave us $15, but the national churches that would give us a check for 15,000. And I'm always quick to say I couldn't have gotten the 15,000 had I not had the $15 from a local group who said we mattered. So we all interconnected in that regard. Those are some of the things that I have learned as I have been involved with projects that required funding. And at this time, you can either share what you have learned. And I know that you're saying I'm not gonna take all this time. Or we can deal with some questions that you may have, and certainly you can teach me some other things. So I'll open it up now for discussion. | 22:30 |
| Speaker 4 | One thing that I think might be interesting for you to talk about is, I think of the women's studies program at Duke University, which has been a very successful fundraising effort in the university where there was an identification of, of graduates of Duke women who were in different positions who might help support the program. | 23:15 |
| Speaker 4 | And, and they've been able to get scholarship money for students, faculty resource money. And they're building endowment to support this program. Uh, in addition to whatever the university was put in. I'm also aware of the different kinds of friends of the library when you're interested in doing some kind of specific kind of collection, how you, you try to sort of identify people who, who are linked to what you wanna do, which is what the study team are doing. I think that might be an interesting something. | 23:38 |
| Valeria Lee | Have you had experiences, any of you in doing that kind of organizing? I mean, see my background and and getting other resources into the work you have? | 24:11 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | Yes. We have a group called Friends of Black Archive versus is a nationwide group. . Yeah, we have. And that they can do a lot of things that you couldn't do on your own. | 24:25 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | And they, like my wife is member of organizations, that's why she's here. Get some of your ideas. Um, but we, we made money— I'm also sitting on the board. This was the chairperson up to the last, last month. They have various grants and they have usually two or three cycles and grants come in. And as, Margaret was saying here, when we meet, you have all kinds of papers piled up. | 24:35 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | But then you got a staff from Secretary of State's office and they will already tell you, it says a high priority, a medium priority, or a low priority. Now, if I gotta do all those papers and the staff says it's a low priority, I want to know why it's a low chance of getting it funded is very slim. | 25:01 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | We trying to get out there, you know, be there for a whole week, like being trapped, you know, when you—but, you got to understand the, the staff guidelines. They'll know more about the guidelines than I would know. And we just finished a, a, a cycle. | 25:18 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | And, and the thing about minorities than getting funded is that I, this is my own observation. When you got the Republicans office, you could fund it quicker, like museum and archive than you could do with Democrats. Democrats are concerned about social programs and they were willing to put that money in order, maybe some sociological studies, but Republicans would have to show that they spend money on Black people somewhere. And, and museums and archives are verbally safe. | 25:31 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | And they said, well, I, I have helped you 'cause I gave to the Black archives $50,000. And so now's the time for Black universities who've got things that archives and museums and other kind of things that are safe, quote, safe and White America to, to ask for money. 'cause they want to give it to you. But if they don't want to give it to you to solve the problems of Blacks in the ghetto, or help young Black men that want to give it to you. 'cause the museum, while it might be Black history, also southern history, so now's a good time to ask. Money's out there for us. | 25:59 |
| Valeria Lee | It really requires that political study that I referenced earlier and being real sensitive to the, the trend. | 26:30 |
| Speaker 5 | You mean we going to have to join the Republican party (audience laughs) | 26:38 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | No— | 26:40 |
| Valeria Lee | But they'll ask you to, and it'll be a Black Republican who will do that. (audience laughs) That's from personal experience. | 26:45 |
| Valeria Lee | When I was up in with the radio station someone asked me earlier, is that where, where we were part of the Soul City. We were connected, but we were in Warrenton. | 26:53 |
| Valeria Lee | And I remember going to this guy who was very active in the party. The first thing he wanted me to do was change my registration that tells you where I, what I am. Second thing he wanted me to not, then I said, please, now you've done that. You, you've taken care of the political piece. Now you just helped me. 'cause both of us don't have to do the same thing. | 27:03 |
| Valeria Lee | So then I went to another group. Again, it was a group that had strong Black leadership and it was a church denomination. And do you know, they wanted me to join that particular church and they said it would really help my case. (audience laughs) | 27:22 |
| Valeria Lee | Please, you know, where are the real values here. Yes. | 27:33 |
| Speaker 7 | Um, I've read perhaps every foundation book that my school has. And I, one of the things you've mentioned too, I've noticed, is that almost all of them refuse to support any type of endowment or scholarships and fellowship, especially at the undergraduate level. And but I've also seen awards given to certain, you might call them funds. | 27:44 |
| Speaker 7 | And I'm wondering if it if the foundation would buy the notion that one established should say an international education fund. And this fund would be used to support a, a diverse group of activities for the whole institution, including fellowships for students to study abroad or something like that. Uh, and it's not directly giving a fellowship because the fundings a fund. | 28:07 |
| Speaker 7 | For instance, there's some sort of fund. When I was in Chapel Hill it gets funded regularly. I say in your reports that you give $2,000 to this particular fund. It, it sponsors speakers and something else like that. But is that a strategy? Do you see that as | 28:34 |
| Valeria Lee | I see that the people reviewing the proposal will know what it is and so calling it a fund or an endowment or a fellowship or whatever, you know, it's more than likely it'll be known for what it is. And this is the way, you know, the, the, the valleys and the hills kind of cycles of, of grants making at one time, higher education could ask for and get support for fellowships or funds or whatever. Now that's kind of the out, you know, it's real hard as you very correctly noted to get funding for that kind of of endeavor. | 28:50 |
| Valeria Lee | We say it is a low priority. You know, funding any kind of higher education for us in general is a low priority. Our foundation has determined our interest in education will be in the area of pre-collegiate education. And yet the most money the foundation has given over its whole history has been in the area of higher education. | 29:25 |
| Valeria Lee | So, you know, it's the cycle kind of thing. Five years from now, it may be back in that it's higher education. Now I just said low priority for scholarships, endowments and fellowships, that sort of thing. Low priority for higher education in general. | 29:47 |
| Valeria Lee | We just put in $75,000 for scholarships at Central for the law school. So that goes back to the earlier point I was making about the, the kind of there there are priorities and then there are exceptions. And the nice thing about foundation work and funding in general on that side is the willingness to quote, make exceptions. And so, again, I would say, unless they say we will not do it, and that's your priority, the thing to do is to ask for that and, and know that it just might get funded. | 30:01 |
| Valeria Lee | We did, we funded a program over at at UNC to support biomolecular uh, studies for minorities ranging from undergraduate all the way through postgraduate. And again, that's a case where if you were to look at our guidelines, you say, no way are they gonna get a half million dollars from that foundation toward that particular activity for minorities to do this kind of, you know, specialized study. But, you know, at the time it was the right moment. And lo and behold, it was, it was done. Yes. | 30:33 |
| Speaker 8 | I was in the library recently and I stumbled across the compendium of grants that are available in the United States. And I was wondering if there's a similar source book for foundations. | 31:08 |
| Valeria Lee | The foundation directory is, is a, a publication that comes out of the Foundation Center in New York. Um, and that's mainly foundations that are willing to report. Okay. But al over other than that, I don't know of any directory. And that in the foundation directory, they will tell you who's on the board, who the executive directory is, what the deadlines are what the priorities are, what the, you know, the, just sort of a little blurb about each of the foundations. So the foundation directory is the, is the one place that I can just immediately direct you to. | 31:20 |
| Valeria Lee | But what we discovered in North Carolina some time ago was when the Center for Public Policy Research was doing a directory of giving programs in this state. Uh, there were hundreds in the state that are not in the foundation directory. They tend to be the very small foundations that might give you a hundred thousand dollars. You know, they're only gonna give 250,000 and they're give one project a hundred thousand perhaps. | 32:01 |
| Speaker 8 | Well, that was my follow up question. Um, I, I understand that in the state of Florida, the foundations are regulated to a certain extent better than I did time. Isn't there some sort of regulation that the Secretary of State or foundations have to submit reports or something like that on a annual basis? | 32:27 |
| James N. Eaton Sr. | That's the,maybe for the state's foundation. Yeah. Located the state. I think they do not involve— | 32:52 |
| Valeria Lee | All of them have to report to IRS. And there's that 990 that's public document that everybody has to support, report to the IRS. | 32:58 |
| Valeria Lee | But you see, you came right to i s and get a copy of everybody's report. And that's where the, the challenge comes. And even in North Carolina, you know, any of them that are, any foundation that is registered in the state of North Carolina will be on record with Secretary of State's office as well as this department, north County Department of Revenue. But you can't get a directory either of what they do or even who they are from those sources. You have to go over there and, and make your own. | 33:06 |
| Speaker 8 | But it is accessible then to the public | 33:35 |
| Valeria Lee | As a public document. Right. And the record is accessible even in the office. If you want to know what a foundation is doing. I mean, you have a right as a public citizen to see the public documents. | 33:37 |
| Valeria Lee | The, I think this guide and whatever might be the appropriate one for your work is something that maybe all of you've already seen. But it has to do with both program and capital campaigns. Uh, I know everybody's probably done at least three FIPSE applications in here, and I hope you've been successful (laughs) anyway, out of the Department of Education, they're still giving away a lot of money. Yeah. | 33:49 |
| Speaker 3 | This, this is taken us a, a little bit away from some of the nuts and bolts, which is, which is very good and useful. We just had had a discussion, very thoughtful discussion presentation by someone who was, who was suggesting that that work that needs to be done documenting aspects of the experiences of African American ought to look at what probably would be perceived as different non-traditional in some instances even even even threatening to the status quo. | 34:18 |
| Speaker 3 | Um, and, and in a sense foundations through their, their program program officers and and boards serve as gatekeeper with knowledge and the, the submission of nonconventional types of activities. Um, oftentimes, uh uh, outside of the, the guidelines, not the guidelines, but the particular categories are likely to fund uh, how does one, I guess I'm sort of raising this kind of generally, how does one begin to try to um, get things funded that are not likely to be perceived as fitting closely to but at the same time enabling one to explore those subjects. | 35:02 |
| Speaker 3 | And I think that those are the kinds of things that, that those of us who, who, who want to pursue things that are different uh, will likely or projects that would likely be confronting in trying to submit things to foundations that have traditionally focused on certain, certain areas. | 35:59 |
| Valeria Lee | And I can speak to that. Um, I'm on the board of Women and Foundations Corporate Philanthropy. And uh, last year our organization did a study of the governing boards of foundations in the country. They're White males, probably kind of old. | 36:21 |
| Valeria Lee | I mean, just, you know, they, that's the bottom line. Who has the, the governance and legal say over foundation programs and funding. That's what we gotta deal with now. That's the reality. Uh, we also know that they typically come out of communities of wealth. That speaks to a kind of conservatism. That's the reality. | 36:38 |
| Valeria Lee | So there, how then do we access those dollars given that reality? And I believe that they can be accessed (laughs). | 37:03 |
| Valeria Lee | So let's start from that premise. I do believe they can be accessed. Um, one way simply is to do something I suggested earlier, find some influential being within the organization or associated or connected to friends of a friend of, you know I know that for the first time I asked money for, or asked for money from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, it was probably the best proposal we'd written 'cause it was just really right on target. We were gonna document some children's experiences and do a whole radio series and archives around for children. And it was absolutely wonderful. And they said no. | 37:12 |
| Valeria Lee | And so then I called up, they happened to still, even that time in 77, they had a Black member of the board. And I called him up and I said what happened? And he just said, well, it seemed like general operating support as opposed to just a real project that you were trying to do, we couldn't see how this really was this was not really a way to support your general operations. You know, and I, I heard what he said. I really told the truth of it. It was gonna cost that much money to support this project. And the fact was we weren't paying a whole lot of other people so you could run the organization on the lot less money than this one project was gonna come. | 37:47 |
| Valeria Lee | So that was very helpful to me. And then we went back the next year with another proposal. 'cause we knew about their priorities and they said, no thought, well darn know, this is two attempts. And we've been, we've gotten some pretty good ideas. Uh, one of 'em, the children's program was just as innocuous as anything I could imagine. The other one had a little bit more social consciousness to it, and they still said no. | 38:26 |
| Valeria Lee | The third time I had, through just a series of circumstances beyond my control, met two people on the board. And they knew that I was not really, I mean, I talked to the people and they knew we were serious. Our work was on the air. And it turned out that somebody decided that this was really an exciting group up in Warrington. And they said yes. Well, you know, I couldn't have orchestrated the encounter that I had had with the board person, but the board person then was able to convince, I'm sure, I mean, I don't know it 'cause I wasn't in the organization then that this was really a worthwhile endeavor. | 38:48 |
| Valeria Lee | But by that time, we also had become legitimized with public agency money. And I think that will, it, normally it's the foundation dollars that are considered the most risky or riskiest. But in some instances, even to get to the foundation dollars, particularly if you're outside of mainstream thinking or doing, you almost have to have gone through something that has such rigid guidelines that you can't easily be denied. | 39:27 |
| Valeria Lee | And whether through is an arts council program or humanities committee, national or state or even local, it's like through some of that public funding you have become legitimized. So then when we went back on the third time and we had some advocates inside and we were already legitimized with public dollars, we could really get some risky dollars to do another project that we had in mind. That's a long way around to say that they're given the realities of the fund, foundation community and corporate giving communities, who is making the decision? | 39:56 |
| Valeria Lee | It's, it's, again, you know, it's that 1% that will go to projects from foundations in a, on a national scale. You just know you're gonna have a hard time raising those dollars. But what you have to do is find a person to be your advocate somewhere. You're gonna have to have proof of your capacity and your whatever is legitimated. | 40:27 |
| Valeria Lee | I mean, whether it's credentials, whether it is the quality of your work. You just want, you know, a prize or whatever may be the quality of your presentation, then hopefully you can get extra dollars to keep on doing what it is you're doing. But the notion that foundations, particularly as it relates to Black communities or causes that in any way speak to the real realities of communities particularly those that are out of power. I just, I don't know any other way around it other than to say I'm gonna do it in fight up. | 40:49 |
| Speaker 8 | Um, this may be a little bit off base, but I'm curious about what your views are on the professional fundraiser person that comes in and takes a percentage off the top and what, what would be appropriate in such a situation as well in your mind? | 41:30 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, the News and Observer recently ran an article about the professional fundraisers in North Carolina. Did any of you see that 75% of the money went to them? | 41:48 |
| Speaker 3 | It made more than the— | 42:01 |
| Valeria Lee | 75% of the funds raised, not just to the fundraiser, but to raising the funds. Okay. Including fund the fundraiser. 25% went to the cause. Gosh, I'm in the wrong business (laughs). | 42:04 |
| Valeria Lee | But our attitude about it, our foundation's attitude is understand that that is a legitimate way to raise funds. We don't have a camp that says in terms of your organizational expense, what is allowable as it were. Uh, our attitude though is very simple to be sure that we are reading the project that's gonna be done and not some rendition of it. That is a professional statement of it that's really not that connected to the real issue. | 42:19 |
| Valeria Lee | Now we are only in North Carolina, we only fund projects for the benefit of the people of North Carolina. That's a restriction of our foundation. So it means when someone comes to us with a proposal from from Raleigh or Durham or, or Swannanoa and they say, you know, here's the condition. | 42:56 |
| Valeria Lee | And you read it and you say, wait a minute, there's this picture's out of focus again. You know, something in right here. Uh, we just try to get beyond that to see what is really the project and evaluated on it, merit on its merits. That's, you know, that's me sounding real noble and all that. But that is truth. That's what we're trying to do. And not penalize a group because they have brought in expertise. I don't find in the grants, we made a large number of them that have, as a part of their overt presentation, the involvement of fundraisers. | 43:16 |
| Valeria Lee | Um, we see it particularly with universities, Catholic campaigns and that, not just for universities, but Catholic campaigns in general. But because we don't make a lot of grants in those areas, I really don't see a lot of activity on our part like applicants who are using or engage in a fundraiser. Another relevant question though, I think is how do we look at overhead, indirect expenses? And in our case, like for universities and colleges or whatever is an established organization, we just don't fund it. | 43:47 |
| Speaker 3 | And the University of Miami, which is a private university nonprofit we have an annual phone campaign and development person, certain, and um, it's almost totally done. All the professors to, and particularly director and they have a list of people you call these people you talk to directly. Mm-hmm. And this is one way that impresses. | 44:20 |
| Valeria Lee | Sometimes those campaigns are all orchestrated and organized by the professional fundraiser who still will get a piece off the top. But again, no, in terms of the foundation's attitude, we recognize it as a legitimate expense, a legitimate profession. And we don't get into how an organization has to decide its strategy should be for raising money, but we are mindful of, we just try to get beyond that sequence really being pursued. | 44:59 |
| Speaker 8 | Well, I was just curious and I I, this isn't specifically in your area, but I, I have, the only things I've heard about fundraising is it always struck me that the thing was top heavy in favor of the fundraiser rather than the institution. I was curious if among the professionals or people involved in this thing, if they have any kind of sensibility, any kind of standards, what, what, what is appropriate or what might be considered appropriate | 45:26 |
| Valeria Lee | For that to have made news in North Carolina that the fundraising work was getting 75% of the funds raised says that we thought it was a bit much within, that's a state kind of, you know, the general— | 46:00 |
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