Charities That Serve Grandparents Fall ‘Under the Radar’ of Many Grant Makers

Grandparents who raise children complain they are often overlooked by charities and government agencies.

But many organizations that serve custodial grandparents say they suffer from their own brand of isolation. Typically small and local, such groups struggle to link up or make ends meet. They frequently blame a lack of organization nationwide and the reluctance of grant makers to offer money to groups that provide services to multiple generations.

“Grandparents who raise kids fall a little bit under the radar,” says Robin Talbert, president of the AARP Foundation, in Washington.

In recent years, the AARP Foundation has tried to overcome the lack of connections among groups by joining with others to publish state “fact sheets” for custodial grandparents and by holding meetings of the groups that serve them. “The work that groups do can fall between the cracks,” she adds. “We certainly don’t see the robust infrastructure as we see in, say, housing or food.”

Advocates and people who study the issue say that needy families aren’t getting the help they need because of it.

“There needs to be a more comprehensive approach that includes both ends of the life span,” says Teresa M. Cooney, an associate professor of human development and family studies at the University of Missouri at Columbia. “Research done nationally suggests that in 39 percent of these situations, children live with their grandparents for five years or more, so we’re not looking at a rapidly passed phase in the life of the grandparent or the grandchild. People need more services that help them take care of children’s needs while doing the same for grandparents.”

Budget Cuts

Worries about foundation support come at a time when local and state governments are trimming services that help grandparents.

“There’s going to have to be more out there for grandparents — we’re already seeing serious cuts in subsidies in several states,” says Ms. Cooney. “Many grandparents haven’t been able to tap state sources anyway, because some require them to gain legal custody before they’re eligible. They’ll need to look elsewhere.”

Charities that serve grandparents have begun to involve more of their employees — and even their volunteers — in raising money.

“Fund raising isn’t a bake sale anymore — it’s a business,” says Kathy Brown, founder of High Desert Relative Caregivers, in Victorville, Calif., which has sent its workers and volunteers to fund-raising seminars. “People have to learn to do this.”

Rarely, a group will get a transformative grant that guarantees its survival.

“We hired a grant writer a year or so ago, and it made all the difference in the world,” says Madelyn Gordon, executive director of Grandparents as Parents, a group in Canoga Park, Calif.

The group received a $100,000 grant from the Eisner Foundation, in Beverly Hills, Calif., last year, as well as smaller awards from other grant makers, including the Annenberg Foundation, in Los Angeles. A 2005 grant for $100,000 from the California Wellness Foundation, in Woodland Hills, Calif., helped the group expand from a $20,000-per-year operation, hire an executive director, and open an office.

Small Groups

But such scenarios are the exception. And even groups that have benefited from foundation grants aren’t comfortable with the idea of relying on them for operating support.

Last year, when Ms. Gordon reviewed the Grandparents as Parents budget, she became alarmed that $3 of every $4 the organization took in came from foundations.

“We thought that could be very dangerous,” she says. “In this economy, you worry about losing a lot of that.”

Now, the group gets about 60 percent of its $260,000 annual budget from foundation grants. Some fund-raising approaches, such as holding a miniature-golf tournament last Grandparents’ Day, which brought in $12,000, have helped the organization diversify its sources of revenue. Other fund-raising efforts — mailing newsletters to 4,600 homes, and a poker tournament — haven’t panned out.

“We’ve thought about an annual campaign, but that takes a lot of energy and planning,” Ms. Gordon says. “It reminds us we’re still a small organization.”

Another grant maker that has supported the group — the Brookdale Foundation, in New York — is making a conscious effort to help small organizations build on their meager resources.

It has given many grants to groups working with grandparents, studied what approaches of grantees work best, and linked its grantees to one another. Brookdale hopes those efforts will give small groups the contacts and knowledge to at least hang tough during hard times.

“We believe it’s important not just to give these groups money, but to help educate them as well,” says Melinda Perez-Porter, director of Brookdale’s Relatives as Parents Program, which has aided 250 organizations that offer support groups and advice on navigating government agencies to grandparents and other family members who raise their relatives’ children.

The foundation offers primers on how to coordinate charities’ programs with services provided by government agencies, how to run a support group, and how to teach grandparents and others how to deal with child-rearing issues.

“We advise them they need to cooperate with each other and see what works best for them,” she adds. “All of our groups do summaries of what they do, so there’s not so much duplication of effort. We’re looking for strategies that work so they can be replicated.”

Brookdale then publishes the approaches that look most promising in newsletters and sends them to other program participants.

The foundation also urges groups to provide programs for grandchildren that run concurrently with ones aimed at adult caregivers.

Grants to each group typically amount to $10,000 per year and include orientation and training sessions led by foundation staff. Brookdale will gather groups that practice the Relatives as Parents model to compare notes.

Then, even if their grants have run out, “we leave the door open for them,” says Ms. Perez-Porter. “If groups have need for financial support in another area — and right now we’re hearing a lot of them want to provide respite care for grandparents — then we’ll encourage them to apply for that as well.”