The philanthropic funders giving ‘well-being support’ to grantees

A group of philanthropic funders has started providing their grantees with funding to specifically support the well-being of overtaxed staff. It’s part of the wider trust-based philanthropy movement that is pushing for a more equitable relationship between donors and nonprofits. Reducing stress and improving workplace environments at nonprofits became a major point of discussion for funders during the COVID-19 pandemic amid increasing reports of staff burnout and resignations. Some philanthropic groups say there is still a need to address the issue. The best grantmakers understand the challenges that come with working at a small nonprofit, said Amol Mehra of the Laudes Foundation. Ignoring the daily struggles staff at grantee organizations face and focusing solely on how they can deliver certain outcomes only serves to “dehumanize them,” he said during a recent webinar on innovative approaches to philanthropy. The Laudes Foundation was started in 2020 by the Brenninkmeijer family, which consists of the Dutch/German/Swiss descendants of the founders of the C&A retail clothing stores. Mehra oversees the foundation’s portfolio of programs aimed at getting fashion and other industries to dually address climate and inequality. “So, this year we are rolling out well-being support to our partners and we’re trialing mechanisms to do that where partners can as part of their general grant application, add a line item that allows them to benefit from well-being support,” he said during the event. “And to me, this is really critical. We’ve heard this need from our partners, particularly with the crises that we’re facing — war, inflation, etc.,” Mehra added. It is an idea that some funders consider complementary to trust-based giving, which aims to balance the relationship between donors and nonprofits by providing grantees more flexibility to spend grant funding however they see fit. Still, just what “well-being support” entails is not clearly defined. “I think if I were to try and boil it down, I don’t know if I could get much more concrete than environments within which all people have the opportunity to thrive, which is still very amorphous,” Jessamyn Shams-Lau, co-chair of the funders and wellbeing group at The Wellbeing Project, told Devex. Laudes is among a group of foundations participating in the The Wellbeing Project, an initiative launched by philanthropic and research organizations in 2014 aimed at fostering “a culture of inner wellbeing.” Members of the organization are still working out exactly what “well-being” means and what support for it looks like, said Shams-Lau, co-chair of the funders and wellbeing group at The Wellbeing Project. The funders group includes Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, Camelback Ventures, Ford Foundation, Imaginable Futures, Segal Family Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. However, she said that the factors affecting well-being are much more tangible. They include things such as providing a living wage, retirement benefits, “adequate” holiday pay, sick pay, and parental leave — “those sorts of things that should be commonplace that are not necessarily in the nonprofit sector, sadly,” she said. All of the members of The Wellbeing Project’s funders group have “at least poked a toe in the water” when it comes to well-being support, but they also recognize that more could be done when it comes to making it a “core component to getting the outcomes we’re driving for,” Shams-Lau said. And the majority of the group’s members also provide unrestricted funding that doesn't limit how the money can be spent, thereby reducing the “the burden” of reporting and due diligence for grantees, Shams-Lau said. That has a huge impact on morale and the sense of well-being at nonprofits, she added. Segal Family Foundation, a member of the wellbeing funders group, has said that it views well-being support as part of its approach to its unrestricted funding approach. “Unrestricted is unrestricted. People can use it to throw lavish holiday parties, for all I care,” he told Devex, noting that such events are good for boosting morale,” SFF Executive Director Andy Bryant recently told Devex. The Hewlett Foundation, another member, also published a report last year highlighting well-being support as part of “nonprofit capacity strengthening.” “Regardless of how support for wellness and healing is structured and where it is placed, interventions for addressing the debilitating effects of stress, trauma, and burnout in a timely manner and building individual and organizational resilience are important investments,” the report reads. The Laudes Foundation is still defining its approach to well-being support, Mehra said. Initiatives that would be eligible for such funding could be aimed at physical health, emotional or mental health, professional development as well as social or team building exercises, he said. The foundation wants grantees to help guide its decisions on where well-being support is needed, whether it be buying sneakers for staff to encourage them to walk during breaks, holding weekly yoga sessions, or holding a staff retreat, Mehra said. However, the funding will be capped at a certain amount to ensure well-being support can be dispersed to as many grantees as possible. “So, it’s not like a blank check,” he said.