More than Money: Making a Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant (2008) : Despite the significant attention and energy – not to mention financial resources – foundations devote to providing assistance beyond the grant, much of it appears to be ineffective. Our data and analyses demonstrate that, today, when foundations provide assistance beyond the grant, they are often doing so in ways that do not translate into a noticeable impact on the grantee organizations or programs that they fund.

Our data collection and analyses reveal four key findings:

• Foundation staff believe that assistance beyond the grant is important for creating impact – and, in particular, for grantees’ achievement of their goals – but they know little about the actual results of the assistance they provide.
• The majority of grantees of a typical large foundation receive no assistance beyond the grant, and the 44 percent that do receive assistance generally receive just two or three types.
• Providing just two or three types of assistance to grantees appears to be ineffective; it is only in the minority of cases when grantees receive either a comprehensive set of assistance activities or a set of mainly field-focused types of assistance that they have a substantially more positive experience with their foundation funders than grantees receiving no assistance.

Providing assistance beyond the grant in ways that make a meaningful difference to grantees calls for a significant investment on the part of the foundation: Program staff at foundations that provide assistance in these ways to more of their grantees tend to manage fewer active grants and give larger grants.

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