Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies

Embedding equity in grantmaking by reducing grantee burden

Grantbook is proud to be on the journey with Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP) as they increase trust, nurture consistency and equity in both grantee and staff experience, and ensure that their valued grantee partners are at the heart of driving application changes.

150+

Fluxx Enhancements

11

Live Dashboards on Qlik

9

transformative improvements to the renewal application

Grantbook and MACP initially partnered on systems work, including guiding MACP to their choice of Qlik as their Business Intelligence tool (late 2020) and helping with GMS optimization in Fluxx (late 2021). We then layered in work on process and practice changes (early 2023) which culminated in streamlining MACP’s renewal application — an effort that involved systems, processes, and practices.

Common to all the efforts is the goal of further aligning grantmaking practices with values by deepening relationships, nurturing consistency and equity in both grantee and staff experience, and ensuring that valued grantee partners are at the heart of driving application changes.

MACP's pursuit of embedding equity does not come at the expense of compliance, however. The foundation takes a both/and approach, knowing that both needs can be met in thoughtful implementation of systems, processes, and practices.

GRANTBOOK SERVICES

Implementation Readiness
Application Redesign
Ongoing Fluxx Support
Ongoing Qlik/Data Support

A group of women wearing hijabs and safety vests, picking up trash in the forest

Challenge

Once we had completed some foundational system selection and optimization work, along with some process and practice improvements, we turned our attention to the Grantee Partner Feedback Survey results. Using MACP's organizational values and philosophy of grantmaking as their north star, MACP identified key areas for reducing grantee burden in the application and renewal processes. With Grantbook’s support, MACP then engaged both grantees and staff to determine the priorities for updating and streamlining the renewal process and forms.

Journey

Working closely with MACP's Program Operations team we developed and presented to leadership a proposal for renewal changes. To implement the changes we engaged with both staff and grantees to determine potential application artifacts and process changes. Key improvements included streamlining, allowing grantees the ability to use their own project budget as well as material from other funder applications.

Following the successful launch of an updated renewal application we gathered feedback and leveraged learnings to now apply similar improvements to MACP's main application.

Impact

With Grantbook’s support in systems, process, and practices work, first in selecting their BI tool, Qlik, and then in ongoing work in their Fluxx instance, MACP has successfully streamlined their renewal application, reporting process, and artifacts, resulting in an improved user experience for grantees and MACP staff.

MACP also embraced experimentation through the renewal grants pilot program that introduced the changes to grantees, gleaning lessons learned through iterative change to apply to future phases of their work.

Under the banner of Embedding Equity in Grantmaking, MACP continues to foster shared stewardship and understanding of the "why" behind the work, put relationships at the centre of the work, and share power internally and externally while respecting any compliance guardrails.

Person holding an iPad showing process work

"Every person I've worked with at Grantbook has been thoughtful, knowledgeable, responsive, and friendly. I consider our Grantbook partners to be an extension of our grants management team."

— Leslie Fideler, Manager, Grant Systems at Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies