While nearly all foundation leaders reported making changes to their grantmaking efforts in 2020, not all are necessarily planning to sustain those changes, a report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy finds.

Based on a survey conducted in April and May of 284 foundation leaders and interviews with leaders of thirty-three foundations and thirty-two nonprofits, the report, Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change? (51 pages, PDF), found that nearly all foundation leaders said that their work with grantees in 2020 was very different (42 percent) or somewhat different (55 percent) from their work prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the respondents reporting changes in 2020, 21 percent said they sustained all changes into 2021, 41 percent sustained most changes, and 35 percent sustained some changes.

According to the report, the most commonly reported changes were to reduce the burden on grantees by streamlining grant application processes (76 percent) and reporting processes (76 percent). While the vast majority of foundations that streamlined application processes planned to sustain all (23 percent), most (39 percent), or some (33 percent) of those changes, 1 percent did not plan to keep them and 3 percent were undecided; while most of those that streamlined reporting processes planned to sustain all (22 percent), most (31 percent), or some (36 percent) of those changes, 5 percent did not plan to keep them and 6 percent were undecided. The survey also found that 61 percent of respondents reported providing a greater share of grant dollars as unrestricted support, and 65 percent of them planned to continue to do so, while 10 percent did not and 25 percent were undecided. Among the 27 percent that shifted to providing more multiyear unrestricted support, 68 percent planned to continue to do so, 1 percent did not and 31 percent were undecided.

Funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and the Ford, William and Flora Hewlett, David and Lucile Packard, Raikes, and Weingart foundations, the study also found that most foundation leaders said that racial equity was a more explicit consideration in how they conduct their work. As a result, many reported changing how they identify applicants, providing more funding to organizations supporting Black and Latino communities, listening more intensively to grantees, funding systems change, and collaborating. To reach more nonprofits serving communities most affected by systemic inequities, 59 percent of respondents modified their grant application process and 67 percent modified their selection process — changes that 83 percent and 85 percent of those funders planned to keep in place.

In addition, the report found that foundations with more racially diverse boards — those in which at least 25 percent of the members are people of color — tended to adopt more practices to support grantees and the communities they serve and to sustain all the changes made in 2020 into 2021. Nearly half of surveyed leaders said that their boards are the biggest impediment to their foundation’s ability to advance racial equity.

“Foundations must guard against getting comfortable with the progress they have made and guard against reverting to old ways of operating,” wrote CEP vice president for research Ellie Buteau in a blog post. “If foundation leaders don’t actively continue to push forward, there are plenty of forces waiting in the wings — from complacency to those arguing against the focus on racial equity, or those who suggest nonprofits are not worthy of trust — ready to knock them off their current course and back into a state of inertia.”

(Photo credit: GettyImages/Violeta Stoimenova)