This page aims to address frequently asked questions about logistics related to receiving funding from Coefficient Giving. If you have a question that is not answered here, please contact grants@coefficientgiving.org. This is geared toward institutional grantees; individuals receiving grants should refer to Public - Frequently Asked Questions (Individuals) instead.
Coefficient Giving is made up of several affiliated organizations that research potential focus areas, investigate giving opportunities, make grants and investments, and evaluate our impact. Rather than making grants directly, we typically recommend grants to our donor-advised funds at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and National Philanthropic Trust, the Good Ventures Foundation, the Coefficient Giving Action Fund, or to other affiliated entities. See here for more information.
ICONIQ, SVCF, and NPT are external institutions we partner with to make and recommend grants.
Because we are often recommending funding to external entities, we often cannot guarantee payment until that entity has completed its necessary due diligence. However, historically, over 99% of grants we’ve recommended have ultimately been approved, and in the event a grant is not approved, we will almost always have an alternative method for funding. The most plausible exceptions would be if you are or your entity is out of compliance with a legal requirement, or in a jurisdiction we cannot fund due to international laws or restrictions.
Generally, ‘formally committed’ includes funds actually spent or funds formally agreed to be spent (e.g. there’s already a contract or agreement in place for those funds to be spent; a purchase order would be a sufficient ‘commitment’ even if not yet paid out, because there’s an agreement for the funds to be spent).
We have a non-negotiable policy for grants to universities that indirect expenses cannot exceed 10% of total direct costs. For non-university organizations, we typically limit indirect expenses to 15% of total direct costs. If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to raise them with the grant investigator or reach out to grants@coefficientgiving.org.
We appreciate the sentiment but there’s no need for a personalized thank you (we do prefer formal “acknowledgement letters” for tax purposes, however). Given the volume of grants we make, we generally cannot forward such letters on to our leadership team, but know that we are all grateful and happy to support the important work you are doing.
We have a budget template that includes generalized guidance available for your use here.
Submitting a detailed budget to us helps us facilitate faster grant execution and payment with our funding partners (assuming there are no additional delays). If we have questions about your budget, a member of the Grants team will work with you to resolve them.
Changes or requests of this nature, which are more programmatic than logistical, should be routed to your Program Officer(s) with a copy to grants@coefficientgiving.org In some cases, we may need to formally amend the grant documentation once the change has been approved.
Grant start date (effective date). Every award has an official effective date, listed in your award documentation. This is the earliest date you can begin using the grant funds, and the point from which any required reporting will begin. The default effective date will be when the last party signed the award documentation, though there may be cases in which a specific effective date is added. If your grant is still in processing and you would like to request a specific effective date, please let the Grants team know as soon as possible. Expenses incurred before the effective date do not count toward using the grant funds and should not be included in any grant reporting.
Grant termination date. Most awards also have a formal termination date, which will be listed in the award documentation. All grant activities must be completed and grant funds must be spent or formally committed by this termination date, and any unspent or uncommitted funds must be returned unless an extension is approved. ‘Committed’ funding includes funds actually spent and funds formally agreed to be spent (e.g., there’s already a contract/agreement in place for those funds to be spent). Please submit any extension requests via email to grants@coefficientgiving.org at least one month in advance of the grant termination date.
If you received a restricted grant (as opposed to general support) and have not used your allotted funds by the end date/termination date, or by the date you complete the project, you either need to a) formally request an extension or b) return the unused funds. You can do either by emailing grants@coefficientgiving.org.
By default, we add basic information about all grants to our website, broadly outlining the purpose of the grant and our rationale for funding it. We do not typically run this by grantees before publishing, but if you’d like to see a draft, you can request to do so before the page is published.
Typically, we prefer that you wait to talk about the grant until after it has been paid, at which point we’ll email you to confirm the grant is now public and share media guidelines. However, it is fine to share the news internally with trusted colleagues and advisors if that would be helpful.
Please refer to these guidelines.
You’re welcome to list us alongside other funders in whatever way your field’s disclosure norms dictate. But we don’t want or need any special attention or recognition. If you feel like it would be best, from an honest disclosure perspective, to list Coefficient Giving as a funder, that’s fine with us. But if you would rather leave it out, that’s fine too.
This varies based on specific details, but you can see historical averages by grant type in a chart under Section 3 here. If your grant is urgent or you need money by a specific date, please make this clear in your answers to our logistics questionnaire/email and we will do our best to accommodate, though we often need at least a week’s notice.
In general, our preference is for you to receive funds in your local currency (e.g. if you are based in the US, then USD, and if based in the UK then GBP), but we can generally accommodate custom currency requests. If you have a preference, please make this clear in your responses to our logistics questionnaire/email.
Due diligence represents the required compliance checks and confirmations needed before we can formally recommend or make a grant. The effort and timelines involved can vary considerably based on the type of grantee, activities, and jurisdiction. A quick explainer is here and more information is below.
No, we can fund organizations without tax-exempt status either in the US or in a different jurisdiction. However, in those cases, we commonly need to follow more rigorous diligence or compliance steps and as a result the timeline for finalization can be longer.
For 501c3 nonprofits, the only typical due diligence check is to confirm active public charity status via the IRS database. If we cannot find your 990s on the IRS website, we may ask you to confirm whether any filings are overdue.
If any lobbying is involved, we will also ask about any required public disclosure(s) of the funding entity or donors to the funding entity (e.g. when and where will the funding entity be disclosed).
For international nonprofits, we typically need to conduct one of two compliance processes: either Expenditure Responsibility (“ER”) or Equivalency Determination (“ED”). These processes will require upfront information collection (e.g. organizing documents like Articles of Incorporation), typically take longer to finalize (commonly 45-90 days), and sometimes require formal written and financial reporting. An overview of each process is here.
Some international organizations have active “Equivalency Determination” certificates available for purchase on NGOSource.org, in which case we can simply buy the certificate and finalize much sooner than starting the process from the beginning.
When sending funds abroad, we also need to conduct an Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) sanctions/watchlist check of key staff and leadership, which is why we sometimes ask for a list of key employees and board members.
Yes, if you need help translating governing documents or documents requested for the diligence process, please let us know and we can support this.
To fund an entity, we need it to be legally formed or incorporated, though it does not necessarily need to have formal tax-exempt or nonprofit status prior to funding. You may also want to consider fiscal sponsorship.
To transfer payment, we need a bank account that is available to receive funds and it must be in the name of the legal grantee (ie., we cannot send funds to an unaffiliated bank account).
Please check your award documentation for the authoritative instructions related to reporting requirements as it varies by grant type. Links to complete and submit any required reports will be emailed to you closer to their due date. In most cases, the primary way we will check in on progress of your grant is through phone calls or direct requests for information sent by your Program Officer(s), who will contact you to arrange these discussions.
Yes, if you need more time to complete a project, please email your Grant Investigator(s) with a cc to grants@coefficientgiving.org to request this, and we will facilitate once approved. In some cases, we will need to formalize this with an amendment or updated documentation.
If your award documentation doesn’t have a termination date, you can continue to use funds for the same project until they are spent down. You do not need to request a no-cost extension, as there is no date to extend.
If you are finished with the project and have remaining funds, see “Do I need to return unused funds at the end of my project”?
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation, which houses a donor-advised fund to which we recommend certain grants, will require interim and/or final reports if Expenditure Responsibility is conducted. These are for SVCF’s regulatory compliance; they are not used in Coefficient Giving’s grant renewal consideration — in fact we typically don’t even see them, and SVCF only makes grants in this area at our recommendation. As such, we encourage you to spend minimal time preparing these reports.
For organizations that do not yet have tax-exempt status or who are newly forming, a fiscal sponsorship relationship might be beneficial. A few sponsors our grantees have used in the past include:
You may find this EA Forum post helpful on cash management and financial practices. While these guidelines can be useful, remember that they are general suggestions. We always recommend consulting with financial or accounting professionals to ensure the best fit for your organization’s circumstances.
Grants from our donor-advised funds at either SVCF or NPT will count as public support, but grants from the Good Ventures Foundation or Coefficient Giving Action Fund will not.
Newer organizations especially may find the following resources on board health and governance useful. Neither are intended as legal advice and are specific to US nonprofits:
Additionally, you may find this blog post by Coefficient Giving’s former CEO, Holden Karnofsky, of interest.
Being a funder comes with unusual challenges to gathering feedback on our work. We greatly value all feedback, especially negative feedback.
If your feedback involves concerns about a potential violation of ethical or professional standards, whether by a Coefficient Giving team member or a member of your own organization, or another Coefficient Giving grantee, please share it through EthicsPoint, an independent organization that will review the feedback before passing it on to us. The EthicsPoint reporting tool allows you to maintain your confidentiality while ensuring your report will be seen by staff who weren’t involved with the matter of your concern.