The Other Foundation Model
Whilst in South Africa I have been able to spend time with a number of staff, peer reviewers, trustees and grant holders at The Other Foundation to really understand their work and approaches from different people’s experiences and viewpoints.
The Other Foundation have been using participatory grant making approaches since their inception in 2014; they fund both organisations and individuals working to improve the lives of LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex) people across 13 countries in Southern Africa. They have several funding streams including research, strategic partnerships and grass roots activity, some of these funding streams follow a more traditional approach whilst others, including the grass roots activities, use participatory method.
For each round of funding the Other Foundation put out an open call on their social media, website and networks for both concept notes (expressions of interest/ideas) and for peer reviewers (LGBTI community members and allies). Whilst organisations, groups and individuals across the 13 countries complete the 10-page concept note application The Other Foundation are also assessing and selecting between 13–16 peer reviewers. The peer reviewers help The Other Foundation choose who they should fund.
Peer reviewers are asked to submit a CV as well as outlining what knowledge they will be bringing to the process. They are also asked to declare any conflicts of interests — any organisations they have, do or will work for.
They tend to receive around 300 applications for funding which are then split into themes such as business, religion, parents and families, advocacy and the arts. Peer reviewers then receive the concept notes for the theme they have expertise in, around 70 applications each. They will then be able to read these at home, thinking about the grants they would most like to fund. For the assessment all peer reviewers travel to Johannesburg to The Other Foundation’s office where they spend an intense two days interacting with each other and discussing their preferences.
The learning from several rounds of funding has meant that peer reviewers no longer receive detailed budgets alongside the concept notes but rather an overall grant amount. This decision was taken to ensure that peer reviewers weren’t getting caught up in the detail and can focus on the idea whilst the specific of budgets are reviewed during the due diligence process.
On the first day of peer review The Other Foundation do an orientation session; this allows them to explain the process as well as providing some insight into the role of philanthropists and laying out the priorities for the funding round. Peer reviewers are then split into smaller groups and discuss the applications made to the theme they are focusing on; these groups are facilitated by someone from The Other Foundation. On the second day they come back together to share their decisions, talk about the best grants and decide what should be recommended for funding with the money available. Towards the end of the second day donors are invited to hear what the peer reviewers have recommended and some of the rational for this.
The combined knowledge of peer reviewers, staff and the board means they are able to flag concerns about different aspects of the applicant at different levels such as their ways of working, their impact, reputation and budgets.
After the peer process staff at The Other Fund complete due diligence on the applicants ensuring they can fund the organisations. Unregistered organisations can be funded through an incubator organisation (another registered organisation who can hold the funds). They then go back to the organisation or individuals to get a more detailed proposal, for some applicants this might include reworking their budget or project plan in-line with the recommendations from the peer reviewers. These recommended applications are then presented to the board for final sign off.
For the Other Foundation the grant management is conducted by their staff, usually around 60 grants per staff member. Over the last few years they have adapted the approach as they were struggling to get grant holders to provide the monitoring and evaluation reports needed to release further payments. This has involved developing a financial template, providing guidelines and building personal relationships with grant-holders, so they can discuss any issues in the lead up to reporting. They try to make it as easy as possible for grant holders to do the reporting, they ask for a simple one-page narrative of the project and what it has achieved as well as a finance report. If a grant holder is visiting a project the staff member can write up the narrative for them by asking the relevant questions whilst they visit. This is still a work in progress and building honesty and transparency with a grant holder is not just a by-product of having a participatory decision-making approach.
My Reflections:
It’s been really wonderful to hear more about the model The Other Foundation use. I really like the mix of expertise that work together to decide on the grants, using both lived and learnt expertise. They use skills, knowledge and expertise from staff, peer reviewers and the board to cover all bases. It’s also good to see that the final sign off comes from their board level ensuring best practice.
It’s interesting to see that grant-management and getting documentation back from a grant holder can always be a struggle. When we were designing the Leaders with Lived Experience pilot programme this was a huge area for the Lived Experience Leaders, they wanted much more say on how we as Funders do this better to be able to support them to create change and celebrate their achievements rather than add to their workload measuring arbitrary numbers.
It was interesting that The Other Foundation took the decision that peer reviewers no longer have to assess detailed budgets, I understand that this allows the cohort to really focus on the concept and core idea of a proposal. However, understanding what makes a good budget and what questions people ask around a budget is a real skill that peer reviewers could really benefit from and would make their future funding applications stronger.
