Pledge Asking Foundations to Loosen Grant Restrictions Is Working, Report Shows

A pledge circulated by the Council on Foundation asking grant makers to commit to loosening grant restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic is working, according to a new survey.

The survey, from the University of Washington’s School of Public Policy and Governance, attempted to gauge to what extent foundations were acting on the planks of the Council on Foundation’s “Call to Action” pledge, which pushed foundations to take eight steps to loosen restrictions on current grants, make new grants as unrestricted as possible, reduce reporting requirements, and contribute to emergency funds, among others. Issued in March, the pledge now counts nearly 800 foundations as signatories.

Nearly 93 percent of pledge signatories say they loosened or eliminated restrictions on current grants compared with only 67 percent of nonsignatories. In only one category did signatories lag nonsignatories — supporting the advocacy efforts of grantees. In that category, only about 5 percent of signatories had done so versus 8 percent of nonsignatories.

The survey went to the 500 largest foundations in the United States, with 138 responding. Of those, 42 had signed the pledge and 96 had not.

The report is the latest in a growing collection of research that suggests a significant portion of U.S foundations have indeed loosened their grant-making policies in the face of the pandemic. But the researchers acknowledge their survey has limits, particularly when it comes to quantifying the extent that these foundations are making the changes.

“We really have just this broad idea of what’s happening and what’s not happening,” said study co-author Emily Finchum-Mason. “We don’t have a lot of detail on what these things look like in practice or the extent to which a ‘yes’ from one foundation looks different than a ‘yes’ from another foundation.”

The report also asked how foundations were supporting high-risk communities throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Sixty percent said they prioritized low-income individuals in their pandemic grant making, while 47.8 percent prioritized Blacks, and 43.5 percent Hispanics. Only roughly 19 percent prioritized Native Americans.