Next Steps: Research and Vetting

August 2023

Our facilitators sent us a summary of our journey so far and urged us to consider how often we might make grants, who will be making decisions on how much and how often we give, will these decisions be made collectively or by one person, and how we aspire to engage with our grantee(s).  Bob let the group know that he decided that we will be doing one or more one-time grants totaling $10,000 but that he did not intend to dictate where the money goes or how to divide the funds among more than one organization. 

We planned on how to move forward.  We asked our facilitators to recommend nonprofit organizations that had the potential to have impact in our focus areas with approaches of direct service or advocacy.  We agreed that we would divide up the suggested organizations and individually research some or most of them using a “Vetting Rubric” to track what we were learning, and we determined that we would be rating the organizations on a scale from one to five:

• Does the organization address our problem statement?

• Is it mission-aligned with our values and charitable intent?

• Is it geographically aligned?

• Is there a WOW factor?

We agreed that our research would include (i) confirming on Guidstar.org that the organization was exempt from tax under tax code Section 501(c)(3) and print from that site their annual Form 990 where they report their activities and financial statements; (ii) review the organization’s website and hopefully find there the organization’s strategic plan; (iii) possibly speak with someone at the organization and ask questions; and (iv) possibly visit the organization. 

Our facilitators amazingly recommended eight to ten organizations in each of the spaces of Mental Health and Environmental Justice—a major benefit of having the assistance of professional philanthropic advisors!