3 survey respondents
Location: 100 Merrimack St Ste 202, Lowell, 01852 MA
EIN: 04-3401997
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100%
0 hours
Median
17%
83%
0%
100%
2017 Deadlines:
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For Fiscal Year
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Amount of Grants to Minnesota Nonprofits:
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Reviewer 5223 - Professional in the field
Actually 2021 - you need to update your year-choice drop-down list.
Here is my review - GLCF does a POOR job. They encouraged my client to apply. They do not have much money, and ask WAY too many questions for the funding they make. They award far too few applications, and award far too little money for what they require. I think I would not be slamming them so hard, except they ENCOURAGED my client to apply. They DO NOT have their act together. GLCF should look to learn from other community foundations in Massachusetts for how to do it right like Greater Worcester Community Foundation and others.
Inadvertently exerts negative influence in the field, Doesn't "get" nonprofits and issues, Difficult to work with, Bureaucratic, Risk averse
Massachusetts
Professional in the field
2020
Bad
Bad
Stop asking so many questions for not enough funding. Quit encouraging organizations to apply where there is LITTLE chance after jumping through all your ridiculously time-wasting hoops.
Beware.
Nothing I can tell.
0
Reviewer 5223 - Professional in the field
"Lots of work for not much money, and not much chance."
Culturally incompetent, Bureaucratic, Risk averse
Massachusetts
Professional in the field
2020
Bad
Tried to sign up for their Zoom info session on the upcoming grant cycle. Did this a few days before the webinar. Seemed to go okay. A few hours before the webinar I got two emails saying the webinar is full and try signing up for Friday. I CAN'T sign up for Friday, I have a conflict. And what other community foundation has a Zoom account that can't accommodate a reasonable number of interested applicants? It's only a local crowd anyway. I would have expected better from a community foundation.
Bad
With this puny amount of money and number of grants, not doing all that much for the community.
With the onerous, burdensome, time-consuming application process, they would not reach or serve grassroots groups, groups led by people of color, and other resource-starved groups.
And paying a professional grant writer for a chance at a $5,000 award with this amount of work involved would not be a great return on investment. And if they did the grant application themselves, they'd be wasting precious resources (time) that could be spent serving their community/population.
This foundation asks way too many questions for a cycle that will distribute like only five grants of $5,000 each. The amount they give out is puny for a community foundation, and yet they go around acting like a big foundation with lots of money and power. They need to streamline their application process. There are plenty of potential applicants in this community who are deserving, resource-starved, and have no bandwidth to jump through the hoops you people put up. Can you say "EQUITY"? Probably, but your grantmaking processes are anti-equity.
Not sure.
0
Reviewer 9108 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2019
While this review specifically references the Women Working Wonders Fund, the majority of GLCF's applications take too much time and are too involved for the relatively small grant sizes $5K-$15K range. The funded applications are also consistently proposing new programs, which of course would take more than $5K-$15K to implement and therefore aren't particularly sustainable.
Culturally incompetent, Risk averse
Massachusetts
Applied and not funded
2019
Average
Bad
They want to improve the Greater Lowell area through philanthropy, but the majority of the funds managed by the foundation don't fund long enough or deep enough to make significant impact.
Convince everyone you can to fund longer and deeper, in the case of Women Working Wonders, even a $25K grant instead of 5 $5K. For everyone else, get them to reduce the workload involved in the grant writing process and convince them that $5K isn't enough for an organization to really start an entire new program.
Over recent years, the organization has become increasingly white, both in staff and also in process and culture.
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