Deciding to Intervene: General Approaches

  • Large-scale grants: While most grantmakers can live with the reality that not every grant will lead to flawless work, grantmakers who faced the possibility of an especially large flounder understandably felt they had to get involved.
  • Special obligation to the grantee organization: A grantmaker who has had a hand in forming a non-profit, or has set it on a path that later proves rocky, should think twice before retreating from even the messiest flounder situations.
  • Organizational culture: While an individual philanthropist might conclude, based on the factors above, that intervening would be justified and helpful, grantmakers working in foundations have to consider one more factor: the style or culture of the foundation that employs them.

Takeaways are critical, bite-sized resources either excerpted from our guides or written by Candid Learning for Funders using the guide's research data or themes post-publication. Attribution is given if the takeaway is a quotation.

This takeaway was derived from When Projects Flounder.

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