Like most busy administrators, BSP grant managers often have not systematically recorded the practical managerial lessons that have come from managing their grant programs. Typically, managers and grantees make a mental note of what went well and what did not go quite right, then try to duplicate or avoid those experiences next time around. This report is intended to share BSP grant manager and grantee experiences and lessons with others who distribute or receive grants for local, national, and regional conservation efforts.
After background interviews with BSP staff, we narrowed our focus to five representative BSP grantgiving programs—two national, two regional, and one global (see Table 1). We reviewed BSP publications and internal documents on these programs. We engaged about 75 present and former BSP grant managers and grantees in an e-mail forum about grantmaking, posing questions on various grant-management related themes. In response they offered their views about what functioned well or poorly, what management strategies suit which conditions, and what the most significant qualities of effective grantors and grant programs are.
This report distills our findings from our document review, interviews, and e-mail forum. Our principal focus is on reporting about grant portfolio development and management practices in each of these programs, not on detailing the actual grant-funded activities and conservation outcomes. Our research objective was not to determine whether one type of program is innately better than another, but to provide a reflection of how grant management was carried out within each BSP program, and how to help you think about which combination of grantgiving strategies and management practices may work best for your situation. We hope BSP's anecdotes, words from the wise, and lessons learned on effective conservation grant management indicate some potential opportunities and pitfalls in whatever grantgiving endeavors you choose to undertake.
Table 1: Five BSP Grantgiving Programs
|
Type
of |
Grantgiving
Program |
Regions or Countries of Grant Activities |
Funding Eligibility |
Award Amounts |
Number of Grants Administered over Life of Program |
Time Allotted for Grant Completion |
|
Applied Research |
CIG—Conservation Impact Grants Program 1991–1999 |
Awarded: Latin America and Caribbean (77) Africa and Madagascar (42) Asia/Pacific (32) E. Europe (1) |
Researchers in countries with an in-country USAID mission |
Up to $15,000 per grant |
152 |
Up to 3 years |
|
Ukraine Conservation Initiatives Grants Program 1996–1998 |
Ukraine |
Researchers, conservation practitioners, and NGOs in Ukraine |
Up to $5,000 per grant |
25 |
1 year |
|
|
Directed Grantgiving in Strategic Natural Resource Management Programs |
CARPE-SOS—Central Africa Regional Program for the Environment Strategic Objectives Support Fund 1996–2001 |
Congo Basin countries of Central Africa and Congo Basin-related research in the United States, Europe, and Asia |
Researchers and NGOs from or working on Congo Basin countries of Central Africa |
Local Initiative CARPE-SOS grants: up to $10,000 per grant Other CARPE-SOS grants: no set limit |
As of July 2000: Local Initiative CARPE-SOS grants: 36 Other CARPE-SOS grants: 96 |
No set limit: most grants allotted between one month and two years for completion |
|
KEMALA—Community Natural Resource Managers' Program 1996–2001 |
Indonesia |
Indonesian NGOs and NGO networks with track records of supporting community based natural resource management |
*Partners receive between $30,000 and $400,000 over the course of two to five years; most partners receive between $25,000 and $70,000 per year. |
As of May 2000: 58 assigned, 19 planned. Grants go to 30 individual NGO partners and network partners. |
Partnerships of up to five years: one- to three-year grants, virtually always followed by a one- to three-year renewal. |
|
|
Hypothesis Testing for Conservation/ Enterprise Project Support |
Biodiversity Conservation Network (BCN) 1992–1999 |
Asia/Pacific |
Not-for-profit partnerships of international organizations and Asia/Pacific local and indigenous communities |
Planning Grants: up to $50,000; most between $40,000 and $45,000 Implementation Grants: up to $900,000; most awards between $450,000 and $500,000 |
Planning Grants: 35 Implementation Grants: 20 |
Planning Grants: up to one year Implementation Grants: three to four years (including up to one year of no-cost follow-on) |
| *Some BSP programs, including CARPE, KEMALA, and BCN, address grant recipients as program partners. | ||||||