What sizes were NW Fund grants?
1997 is the third year of
operation with the resources of an endowment to support
our grant-making. The following table and graph
show some detail of our operation.In 1995, the NW Fund
had three grant cycles, while there were only two in
subsequent years. This explains the large number of
requests in 1995.The most striking set of numbers in the
table is the enormous growth in the percentage of
successful proposals. The number for 1997 is
particularly staggering and should not be construed as
"normal" or indicative of the future.
There are two reasons for this phenomenon: First,
the quality of grant proposals has substantially improved
over time, as environmental organizations have become
more focussed in there work and more adept in writing
proposals. This was aided by advice and counsel
from the Fund office. The second reason is the performance of the stock market, which, in spite of recent gyrations, has been very good to our investments. The NW Fund Board decided in early 1997 to increase its giving beyond the 5% of assets required by the US Internal Revenue service, as long as the proposals are meritorious and of sufficient quality and as long the corpus of the endowment keeps pace with inflation. This board action led the NW Fund to allocate close to $500,000 for distribution in 1997. There is, of course, no guarantee that 1998 will see an equivalent level of grant-making.
The average grant size has also increased during the three-year period; it most likely reflects the improved quality of grant requests. It should be compared with the average grant request of close to $12,000 over the three-year period covered by this report. A more meaningful comparison would have been to compare the average grant size with the average grant request of successful applicants; this was, however, not done for this report.
