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Common Myths about Foundations
- Myth: Foundations are essentially charitable banks. Inexperienced grantseekers often assume grantmakers operate like loan officers, doling out funds according to the absolute rather than relative merits of each proposal. In fact, foundations have their own missions and goals and view their grantmaking as a means to these ends. Grantmakers play many other valuable roles in communities beyond writing checks. These include providing civic leadership, policy expertise, and nonprofit technical assistance; acting as neutral conveners to bring people together; and using foundation dollars to leverage other community resources.
- Myth: Grantmakers have more money than they know what to do with. Don’t believe all the spam you see. Even the largest foundations and corporations receive far more requests than they can actually fund.
- Myth: Foundations are short-term funders and seldom provide general operating support. These statements may or may not be true for large national foundations. Local and regional funders, however, often maintain relationships with key organizations in their communities over long periods of time. And don’t forget that the “checkbook philanthropy” practiced by many of your smaller or less sophisticated members is often made up of annual operating contributions to a group of regular recipients.
- Myth: Foundations have an ideological bias. Liberals stereotype foundations as being conservative; conservatives accuse foundations of being liberal. In reality, foundations are as varied in their approaches as any other institution in American life—and most have no ideological orientation at all.
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What is a foundation?
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