The "Form Letter"
I don’t rant too often, but sometimes it’s just necessary.
Who invented the “form letter?"
You know, the letter that you get for various reasons that tries to be personal but is sent out to a large group of segmented individuals.
Not all uses of form letters are bad, so maybe the better question is,
"Who decided it was ok to send a form letter as a form of rejection?"
We just received a “form letter" from a grant funding organization letting us know that they denied our request for funding. We’ve done pretty good with grants so far, so it’s not that I’m frustrated with not receiving the dollars although it could have been huge for our organization. We’ll survive without it.
I’m frustrated because they decided to inform us along with everyone else that didn’t get a grant with a general letter that doesn’t answer the question of why our proposal wasn’t up to par with those worth funding.
The whole “lots of requests" and “little dollars" is a poor explanation of not giving funds. Someone gots funds and if the grant funder was just giving out dollars to each request, then are they really being efficient with their dollars?
One might argue that no explanation is necessary? On the surface I would agree. Is it worth the time for the leader/board of that foundation to report to each invidual denied request with reasons why their proposal was passed on? Maybe not. Maybe so.
Maybe so because each foundation is feeling the crunch of weakened endowments and is trying to be as effective with their resources as possible. Maybe in the holding of the power, they could influence the direction of organizational mission and begin moving us all in a collective direction to actually influence greater change in our communities.
Or, if the foundations have focused direction, maybe they should do a better job in leading applicants in the process to ensure they get accurate proposals that can be funded directly or with little revisions could be a good fit.
In this case, the form letter is the “easy way" out over providing constructive critique.
Grant rejections are opportunities to provide input that would encourage organizational/missional change to stengthen organizations. That’s their goal right? To provide financial support of organizations/programs that make a difference.
If you’re a funder. Take charge of influencing change by using your power to provide direction to everyone, even those that fail each grant cycle. Why not? It’s up to those that fail to learn and adapt, but if they never know past the “form letter" then can you blame them for never knowing?
