Voting-Style Grant Competitions Are Unfair By Design

A metal slide bolt fastened across the seam of two dark wooden door panel (Image Credits: Unsplash Images, Zoshua Colah

I ran into a spot of trouble with a grant competition some years ago. It took me a few more years to realize the justice issues in the broken system that I was participating in. 

Here’s what happened:

My non-profit client wanted to participate in a corporation sponsored grant contest offering grants of $25,000 to fund “neighborhood need projects.”

The application process looked easy enough:

·  It had four short narrative questions asking about community needs, and how we’d use the grant to meet unmet needs.

·   Applicants could include up to three pictures

·   The first 2,000 submissions would be accepted.

·   200 finalists would be chosen

·    A public vote would decide which 40 community causes would win $25,000 each

We decided to go for it;

 So while the application was straightforward, it still required time and effort to:

·    Strategize how we could use $25k to maximum benefit for a group of young people

·   Create a budget based on actual costs

·   For the communications team to look through the photo archive and pull together pictures to fit our pitch

·  To draft a tightly worded response that fit within the very limited character count

·  For the ED’s edits and feedback

Together, we easily spent 10+ hours of our time on a ‘simple’ application

  Here’s where I made my mistake.

The competition officially opened its portal at 1pm. Now, the grant guidelines had said “spots fill up fast” and “Be quick! We are only accepting 2,000 submissions!” That should have been enough of a red flag.

I had figured, I’d get it done on the first day the portal opened—just to be on the safe side.

My plan was to finish up another writing project that afternoon, and then incorporate the edits from the nonprofit ED before submitting.

At 5pm, I logged into the portal, ready to upload my narrative and pictures.  

“We are no longer accepting submissions.” The portal was closed.

We had not missed a deadline—there was none. But 2,000 others had just beaten us to the entrance, and we were locked out.

One of the worst feelings as a grant writer is to feel you have failed your client. There was nothing to do but accept responsibility—and then move forward.

Reflecting on this experience, I know I could have done better. I could have been poised and ready to go at 1pm. 

Still, this competition held by a large corporation with vast resources was no merit-based competition at all. It was a popularity contest where winning relied on how good your marketing was and how many supporters you can mobilize to vote for you.

Despite good intentions, this kind of ‘competition’ is inherently flawed; the structure of the competition is set up so that the majority of applicants will inevitably fail. It is also biased against smaller nonprofits with limited resources.

Consider:

·         2000+ applicants -> pre-determined that only 40 will be selected

·         No public review or scoring criteria -> a lack of transparency about finalist participant selection

·         More robust marketing and mobilization systems + larger supporter base to ‘vote’-> more likely to win.

 Philanthropy is riddled with structural inequity, and this is prime example of how funders, unwittingly (giving them the benefit of the doubt here) perpetuate bias, limit access, and frankly waste a whole lot of nonprofit staff time.

How many small non-profits are devoting 10+ hours only to find the gates and gatekeepers shut the door before they even get there?

Nonprofits, I encourage you not to participate in funding processes that perpetuate unfair and unjust practices. Don't be complicit. Know your worth, and persist in building partnerships with funders who show respect through their processes and practices.