Project Streamline Action Workshop

Are you drowning in paperwork and distracted from purpose?
How about your grantees?

Join us for an interactive and fast-paced Project Streamline workshop to explore concrete ways to reduce the costs of your grant application and reporting practices to both your organization and to your grantee.

Grantmakers take their responsibilities to support nonprofit and other public-serving organizations seriously, and spend considerable time working to become the most effective. Yet the grantmaking process is rife with inefficiencies, and these inefficiencies mean that everyone is wasting time and money that could be devoted to accomplishing missions.

ATTENDEES AT THIS WORKSHOP WILL:

• Revisit assumptions about what kind of information is necessary for effective and responsible grantmaking
• Learn how to assess and rethink application and reporting systems that place an unnecessary burden on grantmakers and grantees;
• Here examples and share experiences of "streamlining” the grants process;
• Identify barriers to changing practice and how they might be overcome; and
• Create an action plan for making concrete changes to current practices.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND:

The workshop is designed for grantmakers of any type or size. Grantmakers in the midst of a streamlining process as well as those just beginning to consider improving their practices can both benefit from the workshop. Because streamlining requires both policy and process change, we STRONGLY recommend attending this workshop in teams of at least two . Ideally, a team will include someone with decision-making authority (executive staff or trustee) and someone who will be responsible for implementing streamlining decisions (grants manager, program officer, etc.).

Prior to the workshop, participants should familiarize themselves with Project Streamline’s research and recommendations by joining the Maryland Philanthropy Network Webinar: Improving Grant Application and Reporting Processes on September 8, 2011 or reading Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose.

Registration fees:

• Maryland Philanthropy Network member individual, $35 
• Maryland Philanthropy Network member team of two, $50 
• Non-member individual, $85 
• Non-member team of two, $150

When registering you will be prompted to select a "ticket" and pay immediately by credit card or request a "bill".

PAST PARTICIPANTS PARTICULARLY APPRECIATED:

Action-oriented and customized focus. Participants left the workshop with a better understanding of their current practices and a customized plan for next steps, allowing them to take immediate action.

Peer learning. The workshop enhanced knowledge and networks, identified local philanthropic practices, and highlighted resources that have worked well for others.

Dedicated time. The workshop presented an opportunity for grantmakers to step back from their day-to-day responsibilities and strengthen their commitment to streamlining, eliciting deeper buy-in for change from team members.

PRESENTER:

JESSICA BEARMAN (Bearman Consulting) works with philanthropic and other mission-based organizations, helping them become more effective and responsive to the communities that they serve. As lead consultant to Project Streamline, she is the author of Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose, a study of grantmakers’ application and reporting practices, as well as many supporting materials. Her career includes nine years at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental nonprofit based in Maryland.

PROJECT STREAMLINE is a project of the Grants Managers Network, in partnership with the Council on Foundations, the Forum of Regional Maryland Philanthropy Networks of Grantmakers, Maryland Philanthropy Network of Small Foundations, the Foundation Center, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Maryland Philanthropy Network of Fundraising Professionals, and National Council of Nonprofits. Learn more at www.projectstreamline.org.

This special event is brought to Baltimore by the generous support of The Dresher Foundation and the T. Rowe Price Foundation.