If you’re applying for an ECF grant, the most important step is not on paper. Talking to Executive Director Lindsey Hardegree is “STRONGLY recommended” to give your project the best chances for success. This dialogue will ensure that an applicant adequately addresses capacity building, capital funding, and geographic and thematic priorities of ECF funding.
“It’s an important conversation because we’re part of the church, and ECF has a pastoral relationship with parishes who want funding,” she said. “The conversations are part of our way of serving our parish, to help shepherd projects serving their communities in ways that are needed.”
We spoke with Hardegree to understand what makes this conversation so critical.
Requiring a conversation is an unusual first step – why is this important?
Many prospective grant applicants may have only recently learned about ECF. Or they may have received funding a long time ago before we restructured our grantmaking program in 2017. They might say, ‘You already know who we are and what our partnership is like.’ This conversation ensures that all prospective grant applicants are working with current information.
Do you provide grant application advice?
Our process is unusual from a lot of funders; as a result, we can be a bit complicated. Having a conversation will save for our applicants, produce LOIs with fewer red flags, and create awareness of the biggest challenges ahead.
For example, we fund capacity building and capital, not operating expenses. This comes up in almost every conversation we have with prospective applicants. Sometimes we discuss their project budget, line by line, to determine what we would fund.
Without a conversation, folks tend to apply for operating support, or with a parish partner who is not currently eligible to support an application. We’re trying to mitigate applicants wasting a lot of time and having to wait before applying again.
Is the discussion time consuming?
Not necessarily, and often these are quick conversations. I want to understand where a prospective applicant is coming from so I can say if their project fits our criteria, and how to shift if needed.
Our funding is specifically for ministry with people experiencing poverty and oppression, and a conversation reveals programs that don’t quite fit into our criteria. Still, we can do some coaching, offer examples, and set expectations.
What is your main message?
Our core purpose in providing these grants is to help parishes in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta better serve their communities. The parish partner is at the crux of the entire process. Our preference is to fund projects that parishes are doing directly. Parishes usually don’t have other funders like us, but nonprofits do have access to other funders.
A lot of folks don’t quite get the parameters of working with a parish partner. If a parish partner has received ECF funding recently, they cannot be your parish partner until their waiting period has ended from their previous funding. The waiting time can be up to two years between applications, but our parishes and grantees don’t need to track this themselves. Call and we’ll talk you through it.
So, the conversation fosters a side-by-side relationship?
Part of my purpose is to help parishes figure out how to position themselves best to do the work that they need to do. Part of that is giving them the money, part is being their resource. Many conversations are more about program design or managing feedback from clients. We can offer a broader perspective from seeing similar projects at other churches.
It’s really kind of nonprofit consulting for churches. We’re not just funders, we’re partners.
Do you offer examples of successful grant applications?
Yep, absolutely. I share those to learn how other communities have handled similar challenges.
A perfect example is a grant we gave to St. Clare’s Episcopal Church in Blairsville several years ago. They were making space for teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). Shortly before this, we had funded a grant with St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta who had been teaching ESOL classes for years. So, we asked that the folks at St. Clare’s speak to the folks at St. Bede’s. They may be in completely different parts of the state, but there was a lot they could learn from each other. What went well, what didn’t go well?
I always try to end these conversations with hope. I might identify someone to reach out to for information, or another church to connect to, and I am happy to make an introduction. Even if it’s not the right time or project for a grant application, the conversation is not a waste of time. It’s an investment in the relationship.
