Grantmaking

Announcing Your Grants

Communicating with your grantees and the public about the grants you have made is a great way to demonstrate the impact you make on your community. This section focuses on announcing the grant decisions that are made by Affiliate Advisory Boards, or grants committees from the funds over which they have discretion.

Award and Denial Communications

For grants that are recommended by Affiliate Advisory Boards or grant committees, the Quad Cities Community Foundation staff will send award and denial letters and emails to the applying organizations. The communication plan is set up by Community Foundation and the affiliate grants contact before the grant process opens in the Prep Packet.

Upon final review by Community Foundation staff, the first communication will generally be an email to the organization informing them whether or not their application was approved or denied. These email templates are created in the Community Foundation’s online grants system by a staff member, in coordination with the affiliate grants contact. If the process is not using the online grants system, there will not be an email sent from Community Foundation staff.

Once the approved grants are processed, Community Foundation staff will create letters. The letter template will contain space for a fully customizable paragraph from the affiliate. This paragraph can contain a specific message about the affiliate, what the affiliate has accomplished and how they impact their community, information regarding a possible grants reception, or instructions for final reports that are required by the awarded organizations. These letters are issued on Community Foundation letterhead and signed by Community Foundation staff. A sample grant letter can be seen here.

Grant Presentations

If requested, grant presentation ceremonies may take place for the funds advised by the Affiliate Advisory Board or grants committee. All of the material required will be sent to a representative of the advisory board or committee. If your affiliate holds a grant presentation ceremony, the grant letters and checks will be provided to the affiliate grants contact for that event. One exception: if the grantee has chosen to receive payments via ACH transfer, only the letter will be provided for the ceremony.  If there is not a grant presentation ceremony, all grants will be sent directly to the grantees.

For a grant presentation, Community Foundation staff can create a grant certificate for the organization. The grant certificate will include the fund name, the organization name, and the grant purpose, with space for signatures from the Affiliate Advisory Board and Community Foundation staff. These certificates are created only if requested by the affiliate grants contact. All letters and payments will be in an envelope labeled with the organization’s information.

Grants that are made from designated or organizational endowments will have the letters and payments associated with the grant sent directly to the grantee. This is because the Advisory Board or grants committee does not have discretion over those types of funds, and these funds have been set up directly to impact the selected organizations on a yearly basis.

Press Releases

Your Affiliate Advisory Board or grants committee may like to issue a press release regarding the grants being awarded – this is a great way to get out the word about your work! Your Community Foundation contact will need to review and approve your press release before you send it out to media contacts. Be sure to allow two weeks for review and approval of the information you submit. We can approve a draft before the grants committee meets, to expedite your announcement. View a sample press release here.

What the Community Foundation can Provide

The Community Foundation can supply your Affiliate Advisory Board or grant committee with several items to help make the process run as smoothly as possible. Community Foundation staff will send out notifications of grant awards, letters with checks or certificates, and guidance on the personalized section of the letter. Community Foundation staff can also pull together historical data on the total grants that have been issued from the fund, to show the impact your affiliate has had on the region over the years. If requested, information on your family of funds can be given for your presentation ceremony. This  can give cumulative information about funds, how long funds have been open and other information available to the Affiliate Advisory Board or committee.