Grantmaking Process

This post outlines the stages of a typical Coefficient grant investigation. Many of these details will vary depending on the grant in question, or the fund investigating that grant (for example, some funds regularly skip the Strong Interest stage).

There are usually five stages in the grantmaking process, summarized below and explained in more detail later in this post:

1. Strong Interest: The grant investigator identifies a potential grantee and arranges an initial conversation. If interested, they submit a short writeup to sync up with senior staff.
2. Investigation: If senior staff agree that the opportunity is worth looking into, the investigator conducts in-depth research and engages in further conversation with the potential grantee.
3. Conditional Approval: If the investigator thinks the opportunity still looks promising after further investigation, they share a more detailed writeup with senior staff and leadership for approval.
4. Formal Approval: If the grant is approved, we recommend it to one of our external funding partners, which conducts a formal approval process (e.g. due diligence). Meanwhile, our Grants team works with the potential grantee on logistical details (e.g. how they’ll receive the funding). Nearly every grant that reaches this stage is approved and paid out.
5. Evaluation and Close: After the grant is paid out, the investigator may follow up to request occasional updates on the grantee’s progress. If the grant is eligible for renewal, we will begin another investigation as it approaches its termination date.

While our team typically identifies most of our grantees directly, we occasionally run open calls for proposals, where we invite potential applicants to share more information at the outset.

To learn more about our grantmaking process within the context of a specific team, we recommend The Farm Animal Welfare Grantee Experience.

Strong Interest

The first stage of our grant process usually starts when a Coefficient investigator identifies a person or organization they think could be a potential grantee. They talk to that potential grantee to get a basic understanding of their work, and what their funding proposal might include.

Then, if the investigator wants to proceed, they write up their thoughts for a group of reviewers (including their manager or another senior colleague). The goal of this stage is for the investigator to sync up with senior staff on their level of interest in the potential grant, as well as any key questions to resolve in the subsequent investigation. By getting early input and buy-in from senior staff, we aim to use everyone’s time efficiently — including the potential grantee’s — and avoid requesting detailed information unless there’s a good chance the grant will move forward.

Once the relevant senior team member(s) sign off on the writeup, the investigator moves to the next stage.

Some funds use Strong Interest as part of their standard process, others only for especially large or complex grants. Even funds that typically use this stage sometimes skip it, most commonly when:

• The grantee already submitted a funding proposal through one of our open applications, in which case we may proceed directly to the conditional approval stage.
• We are renewing a previous grant, and the new grant isn’t significantly larger than the previous one.
• The grant is “discretionary.” Certain senior program staff have a small pool of funding they can use to recommend “discretionary” grants without the standard approval process.

Investigation

During this stage, the investigator gathers more information from the potential grantee and decides whether they’d like to recommend the grant. Topics covered at this stage include:

• The specific work the potential grantee wants to pursue, and the case for why it would be impactful
• Challenges they anticipate, and how they plan to address them
• The amount they plan to request, and how they would use grants of different sizes
• Logistics around how the grant will be made

A typical investigation takes 1-3 months and requires around 20 hours of time from the potential grantee. Complex and multi-year commitments usually take 4-6 months and often require more engagement from potential grantees.

If an investigator concludes that the case for funding a grant is strong, they seek conditional approval.

Conditional Approval

In this stage, Coefficient decides whether or not to recommend funding for a grant. 

To seek conditional approval, an investigator adds more detail to their initial Strong Interest writeup (where applicable), then submits it to their manager and senior leadership (“approvers”) to explain the case for the project. Approvers and the investigator then discuss and decide whether or not to conditionally approve funding the grant. This stage is generally quick, often concluding within 1-2 weeks, and typically requires no further time or input from the potential grantee.

Formal Approval

Once a grant has been conditionally approved, the investigator sends the potential grantee a notification and connects them to our internal grants team, who then request the basic details required to process the funding recommendation and ensure compliance with our research transparency guidelines and any legal restrictions that might be placed on the funding. Once this is completed, we formally recommend the grant to one of our external funding partners.

Coefficient Giving LLC (the organization that employs most Coefficient staff) generally does not pay grants directly. Instead, it submits formal recommendations to our grantmaking entity Coefficient Giving Advisors, Inc, or to one of our external funding partners, such as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the National Philanthropic Trust, or the Good Ventures Foundation. That organization then conducts legal due diligence and a formal approval process to determine whether or not to fund the grant. Through our network of external funding partners, we’re able to support a wide range of recipients and activities, including U.S. nonprofit organizations (501(c)(3)s), international nonprofits and charities, universities and research institutions, individual researchers, for-profit companies (when projects are aligned with a charitable purpose), and projects involving lobbying. Our grants team will work with recipients to identify the most appropriate funding structure for their specific situation. Different types of recipients may have different timelines and requirements, which we’ll explain during the logistics process.

Legally, we cannot guarantee that a grant will be made until the formal approval process has been completed by our external funding partners. Historically, however, almost all (over 99.5%) of the grants that have been conditionally approved have ultimately received funding. In most of the exceptional cases, the grants were canceled or postponed by grantee request (e.g. because the grantee decided to pursue an alternative project).

Our external partners’ approval timelines vary based on recipient type and grant structure. Simple grants to established organizations are typically finalized within a few weeks, while complex grants — including those with unusual structures, multiple payments, or specialized compliance requirements — may take longer.

Once this stage is complete, the grant is finalized, funds are transferred, and work on the project can begin.

Median Payment Timelines, 2024

Below is a chart showing median payment timelines (from Stage 3 to payment) by grantee type during calendar year 2024. While each situation is different, we hope these figures will provide a rough guide for what grantees should expect upon reaching Stage 3.

Evaluation and Close

By default, we do not require formal written reports from grantees. However, there are occasions when we or our funding partners are legally required to collect brief narrative and/or financial reports. This typically applies to grants to individuals, international organizations without U.S. tax-exempt status, for-profit entities, and grants involving lobbying activities. When reporting is required, this will be clearly stated in your grant agreement and our grants team will highlight the requirement via email.

Additionally, for most grants, the grant investigator will reach out periodically (commonly at six-month intervals) to request status updates on the work, either with a check-in phone call or by requesting the grantee complete a form. These check-ins focus on project progress, challenges encountered, and addressing any open questions that were raised during the conditional approval process. Some grants may not involve check-ins (especially smaller grants), while others might include more frequent check-ins or a formal reporting process.

When a grant is approaching its termination date, if it’s eligible for renewal, another grant investigation will be conducted. The renewal investigation will be similar to the original investigation but will focus more on progress and updates since the prior grant and an evaluation of the case for another round of funding. Depending on the project, renewal investigations can sometimes be faster and simpler than the initial investigation.