Program officers have a tremendous influence on their grantee’s happiness. CEP’s seminal report on the importance of relationships between program officers and grantees documents that program officers can be a more important determinant of a grantee’s experience than the foundations they work for. As a program officer myself, this is both a relief and a burden. A relief because it means program officers can make a difference to grantees — even if they are situated in institutions that do not have the best policies and practices. A burden because it means our day-to-day choices are all the more important.

Fortunately, there are many great resources available to program officers on how to do their work effectively. The same CEP report provides practical ideas on what highly rated program officers do to build strong relationships with their grantees: they get to know grantee organizations and the context in which they work, they are transparent about their foundation’s processes and strategy, and they remain open to new ideas. The Trust-Based Philanthropy project offers similar principles for program officers to put into practice.

Unfortunately, all of these great resources have failed to change behavior at scale. Why? The gap in putting these into practice is not merely whether an individual program officer knows about better practices. It also is not merely about whether their institution will allow them to do it. Rather, there are deep-seated mindsets and beliefs that tempt program officers into engaging in less supportive behavior.

The tenets of effective philanthropy clash with skills that many program officers have been grooming their entire lives.

  • We are prepared to promote our own ideas, but good philanthropy requires putting money behind ideas that others came up with.
  • We are told to be pioneers, but sticking with a cause long term is necessary for change.
  • We are taught to hold and accumulate power, but effectively supporting grantees requires giving it away.
  • We learn how to come up with answers, when good philanthropy is mostly about asking the right questions.

Thanks to this conditioning, there are days in my role as a program officer where I have personally felt an acute existential crisis: I don’t actually do anything.

When you are conditioned to believe your worth is derived from innovating, coming up with the answer, and promoting your own ideas, following effective philanthropy practices can feel like little more than pushing paper. Sure, some of that “paper” comes in the form of very large checks, but that’s not the same as running programs, doing research, or creating a new venture. People conditioned to be ambitious can find giving grantees unrestricted support year after year, without shaping their programs or work, to be boring — or, worse yet, feel like they are failing if that is “all” that they do.

Read the full article about embracing the boring by Dana Schmidt at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.