Top 5 reasons we love you, our grantees!

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We meet the most wonderful people in our line of work! With Valentine’s Day upon us, it seemed timely to gush just a little. So, without further ado, here are the Top Five reasons why we love you:

5. You’re dedicated to children and your community! In our 34 years as a foundation we can’t remember a single grantee that didn’t have the best interest of children and community in mind. Folks, you encourage us!

4. You want to learn and get better. As foundation leaders we continually strive for ways to accomplish our mission and that means that we often challenge you with new words, ideas and accountability. So many of you embrace these changes and challenges and strive along with us.

3. You’re inspired (as we are) by Mr. Dekko’s vision of economic freedom! Economic freedom is the ultimate liberty to make choices about one’s own life. We ask, “Is this a beautiful vision, or what?”

2. You tell us when we need to do better. We know it’s not easy to state the brutal facts to a funder that can offer support to your organization. And yet, many of you do! Some of you disagree on the reasons why a proposal is declined. A few of you think our email marketing stinks. All of you wish the 100-word limit on our grant applications would somehow get flushed. Your comments make us sit up, take notice and change things when it makes sense.

1. You work HARD! We thank you from the bottom of our Valentine’s Day hearts!

WHAT in the world do they want?

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Many of us on the staff of the Dekko Foundation have been grantseekers ourselves. Some of us did our grantseeking as volunteers for organizations we’re passionate about, others of us approached foundations in our former jobs.

Bottom line: we know a thing or two about grant applications.

One of the things we know for certain is that they’re hard. When support for your organization, and its work, is on the line it feels very important to get it right.

If you’re experiencing that feeling, we offer two things to help:

  • Grant Application Previews. We feel that, when it comes to helping grantseekers, there’s no such thing as TMI.   Our Grant Application Preview is on our website right along with our grant application. It has a sample answer for EVERY question on our grant application.
  • The opportunity to meet with one of our program officers. You already know that all foundations do their work differently. When we receive your grant proposal, we ask a program officer to meet with you (either in person or on the phone). This way, if you didn’t actually say what you meant to say on your grant proposal, you’ll have a chance to help our program officer understand what you DID mean to say.

Mary Allen, our grants manager, answers the phone with a smile in her voice. She takes calls from grantseekers all day every day. She’s resource number three and available at: 260-347-1278 or mallen@dekkofoundation.org