Alliance in collaboration with WINGS has been commissioned by Propel Philanthropy to conduct a 10-part interview series on the work of Social Impact Infrastructure Organisations (SIIOs) and the benefits they bring to the sector. This interview series aims to collectively galvanize a significant change in how funders and others think and feel about building infrastructure, unlocking global resources, and establishing robust ecosystems.

These interviews are published here. In this instalment of the series of conversations with the representatives of SIIOs, Andrew Milner talks to Walter Veirs, Mamo Mohapi and Nick Deychakiwsky, of Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Walter Veirs, Mamo Mohapi and Nick Deychakiwsky, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has a long history of supporting philanthropy infrastructure organisations, both in the US and abroad. Three of its long-serving programme officers talk to Andrew Milner about that history and the reasons behind its continuing commitment to numerous organisations that support the sector.

WV: The reason that three of us are here in the interview is that Nick and Mamo work on our community philanthropy programme, but they also work with me on the civic space programme, and in both of those programme areas, we interact with and fund and partner with infrastructure organisations in different ways, and so we thought it would be interesting to have both of those perspectives.  And we’ve all been at Mott for a long time, so we also know the history of Mott’s involvement with philanthropy infrastructure. That’s the perspective we wanted to bring. In terms of the deep history, maybe you can start, Nick.

ND: A lot of things got started with the Mott Foundation back in 1969, when there were significant changes to US legislation regarding philanthropy, and our founder, Mr. Mott, voluntarily testified in Congressional hearings, and that led to a realisation that there needs to be a broader understanding of the policy environment affecting how foundations operate. That then led to more support for things like Foundation Center – now Candid, the Council on Foundations, and in our own state, the Council of Michigan Foundations.  There was a core realisation of the need for us all to try to work together, not only on policy but on how we do our work — on effectiveness, transparency, on accountability, on how the sector finds its place within society. That also informed our understanding during the evolution of our civil society work that philanthropy is part of broader civil society, so we can’t treat it as completely separate. We need to address the broader infrastructure of civil society or, as they’re now more frequently calling it in the US, the social sector.

We see philanthropy as an enabler of civic engagement. In many African countries, it’s really difficult for people to engage on issues with the government if they don’t have strong infrastructure and the ecosystem that enables that to happen.

WV: Bill [White] and probably Mr. Mott realised at that time, too, the 1960s, that the sector was not very well prepared to defend itself and how quickly the legislative body could change the rules which would affect profoundly the space in which philanthropy operated. So, from that time, they became aware of the need to build that infrastructure and protect that space that we work in.

AM: How did that extend into Mott’s work in South Africa and Central and Eastern Europe?

WV: Apart from the importance of protecting the space, we also realised how important it was that people have the right to organise and assemble and form associations, on the NGO side, but also Bill White would always talk about people having the ability to exercise their charitable impulse, which is another kind of freedom, the freedom to give and to engage in philanthropy. When we went abroad to Central and Eastern Europe and to South Africa, it was a logical thing for us to include because we were arriving in places where there was no infrastructure. We were a guest funder, we didn’t come with a strong agenda of what people should be doing, but we wanted to give them the opportunity to associate and to engage in philanthropy. Mamo, maybe you want to say something about that?

MM: As Walter said, when we decided to expand to other countries and other regions, what we found was that the infrastructure that was needed either for civic engagement or for philanthropy wasn’t there. When we started the work in South Africa, the approach we took was more around creating the space for civic engagement, and so we supported organisations that were responding to civic issues. As the programme changed, our focus was on philanthropy infrastructure and on organisations that were looking at different ways, as Walter put it, of allowing civil society to exercise its philanthropic impulse. That’s when we started supporting organisations such as the Southern Africa Trust, which looked at supporting giving and creating giving platforms.

ND: What I have noticed is that in many other programme areas there has been traditionally an attention to what you might call the ecosystem around the main thing. For example, the Mott Foundation grew out of community education work, which later morphed into after-school work. A lot of that wasn’t just about making the work happen, but about creating organisations that would care about a broader field. That kind of thinking also informs our Environment programme, where there was a lot of talk about supporting not just the aims of, say, fresh water but the ecosystem of organisations around that. I’m not sure where that came from, but I’m going to surmise that some of it has to do with the fact that the Mott Foundation is also a very local funder. We work in our own town of Flint, and in a very multifaceted way, and I think when you’re local, you see how you can’t just address one thing, you have to look at it holistically. It’s my guess that that probably fed into the way Bill White and the board approached our thinking when we went into other places as well.

Philanthropy itself is an act of civic engagement, and I think sometimes that’s not recognised because of a stereotype that philanthropy is just wealthy individuals, big institutions giving money.

WV: In the early days of our work in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, too, one of our strategies was to fund NGO resource centres, which were basically infrastructure for anyone who wanted to learn how to start an association in their community or at national level –  they could provide training, information on fundraising or project management, on how to register an organisation, those sorts of things. We had this idea that every country in Central and Eastern Europe needed a resource centre. I’m not sure how far we got on that, but there were a lot of them in Eastern Europe, some of them still exist, and they were the early pieces of infrastructure. It’s evolved incredibly since then, become more complex and addressed different needs, but that was one of our early strategies for working in that space. To Nick’s point, we didn’t pick an issue, we looked at the space and said: ‘Okay, what do people need to organise around the things that are most important to them?’

Both you and Mamo used the term civic engagement and philanthropy in tandem. To what extent do you see them as going hand in hand?

MM: If I think about the Africa context, we see philanthropy as an enabler of civic engagement. In many African countries, it’s really difficult for people to engage on issues with the government if they don’t have strong infrastructure and the ecosystem that enables that to happen and because, in many instances, the state is not always supportive of civil society, funding from the state can be limited. So if you have strong philanthropic institutions that are able to unlock resources to strengthen the civil society space, it enables stronger institutions that can engage on civic issues. That’s the link that I see. That’s part of why, for us, it was so important in Africa specifically, even as we’re focusing on civic engagement, to support efforts to build and promote philanthropy as a practice – this idea that people need to give and to have professionalised systems of giving. Without philanthropy funding that supports work that the state and the private sector don’t support, then civil society struggles to get the support that they need.

Let me just ask a fairly simplistic question: why shouldn’t foundations just get on with it on their own? Why do they need an infrastructure body?

ND: Before I answer that, I’m going to answer the previous question to say that philanthropies need to support civic engagement, but one of the ways to engage civically is through philanthropy. Philanthropy itself is an act of civic engagement, and I think sometimes that’s not recognised because of a stereotype that philanthropy is just wealthy individuals, big institutions giving money. But if we take a broader definition that whenever people contribute their time, talent, treasure, testimony, etc., then that is a philanthropic act, and that is also civic engagement. So in some ways, the two are, depending on your semantics, the same thing. To go back to your question, foundations definitely can go it alone. I’m recalling the old proverb, ‘If you want to go far, go together. If you want to go fast, go alone.’ Sometimes there is a need to go fast, but in general, we can accomplish much more together because no foundation ever has enough resources to make something happen alone. Even the Gates Foundation says we have to leverage money. So, if we want to make something happen, we are always trying to get others to come in, and one of the ways to do that is if you have infrastructure organisations that provide platforms where we can more easily find our peers, develop relationships with them and then figure out ways to collaborate. So that’s one big reason why we need infrastructure organisations. Now, there’s others in the policy realm, supporting research and so on, that I’ll leave it to Walter to talk about.

WV: One of the reasons that we work with infrastructure today and our programme is around policy for philanthropy, for civic engagement, is to create or protect an enabling environment. From a policy advocacy point of view, your policy outcomes are better when you are collaborating as a field, you can come up with a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t, and you speak with a more unified, a more representative voice, so you can be more successful in getting your policy positions across. So, to answer your question of why not go it alone, on the policy experience, it’s very clear, we need to tell our story together through joined up advocacy.

So there are these various roles – encouraging a culture of giving, fostering civic engagement, fighting the civil society corner, so to speak. Are there other things which  would incline you to support an infrastructure body  – research, for instance? Is that less of a priority for you?

ND: It’s not less. There’s a certain construct we were using here to guide our programme — the idea that you have a policy environment for the social sector that is connected to good practice in the sector. If you don’t have a good policy environment, your practice won’t be as good because you’ll be more limited. Conversely, if your practice isn’t good – and, by good, I mean effective, inclusive, transparent, accountable, etc – you will probably not have a good policy environment because the policymakers will not have the trust and confidence in you.  To make that cycle happen, you need good information that feeds into both policy and practice, and that’s where you need data and research. After a while, we maybe had a little bit less emphasis on effective and good practice, probably because there were a lot of other funders who were investing in that. So if we had to rank where we deploy resources, it would be, first, through that policy lens, then we pay attention to research and data, and after that, the idea of good practice. It’s important, but as I said, there are plenty of funders who want to focus on just that, and their money runs out when it gets to the things that don’t show tangible results as quickly and easily, like research and policy advocacy.

On a purely factual note, could you run through a few of the main support organisations you are funding at the moment?

WV: One of the ways we think about it is geographically, so, because we’re a foundation based in Michigan, we support our Michigan-based infrastructure organisations, Michigan Nonprofit Association, the Council of Michigan Foundations…

ND: There’s an interesting thing called the Office of Foundation Liaison, which builds partnerships between state government and philanthropy. That’s another one of our Michigan infrastructure organisations.

WV: We have a really long-term relationship where we’ve basically loaned an executive to that office.  Similarly in the United States, we do a lot of work with Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, National Council of Nonprofits and United Philanthropy Forum.

ND: They handle all kinds of things, but our main interest with them is how they affect the policy environment. Then there are organisations that we think are more strictly related to providing the information that the sector needs, the research and the data. Candid is a ‘biggie’ for us in that respect. There is the Urban Institute, which does research on tax policy in relation to the non-profit sector, and Indiana University’s Lilly Family School Philanthropy, which does research on the global environment for philanthropy. They have a thing called the philanthropy panel study that we also support that feeds into Giving USA, so there are good statistics on giving put out every year. George Mason University also does research on non-profit employment data.

WV: If you go back to the 60s when we started some of this work, it was about building those organisations. To this day, we give them mostly general purpose or operating support, but our programmatic interest has shifted a little to the policy role that they play. So, as Nick suggested, we’re not as much focused on the effective practice, for example, or directly growing philanthropy. We’re really focused on the space, the enabling legal and fiscal environment for philanthropy and for non-profits. If we move outside the US, we have a long history of working in Central and Eastern Europe, and in South Africa, so we have invested over time a lot in some national and regional infrastructure organizations. Our program changed in 2018, so we don’t have the same geographic orientation, but continue to work regionally and globally. We continue to support Philea, which is the new association created when the European Foundation Centre and the Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe merged. We were one of the early funders of the European Foundation Centre and of the Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe.  At the global level, we work with WINGS and CIVICUS, and if you think of infrastructure more broadly, we also work with the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law and the European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law. We obviously support some philanthropy media, one magazine called Alliance…..

I think I’ve heard of it!

WV: A lot of our research and data work is more US-focused, but as Nick mentioned, Indiana University does work on the global philanthropy enabling index. If we move to Africa, we have some regional work.

MM: Yes, we mostly support regional work, but we have a few organisations that are focusing at the continental level, so we support the Africa Philanthropy Network and the Africa Philanthropy Forum, which came out of the Global Philanthropy Forum. At the regional level, we have the East Africa Philanthropy Network, and in South Africa, specifically, we’ve been supporting the Independent Philanthropy Association of South Africa. We haven’t really had strong regional bodies in West and Southern Africa around philanthropy but even there we’ve been working with other partners that are looking at the infrastructure at the regional level.

Just on Africa, Mamo, do you need a basis to work with before you can have a philanthropy infrastructure organisation?

MM: I think that’s exactly it. Where we’ve had successful infrastructure organisations or where the ecosystems are stronger is because there’s a bit of energy there. In West Africa, actually, though there isn’t really what we would call a network organisation for philanthropy, we’re starting to see a lot more ecosystem growth. I think at some point, you might start seeing those organisations come together and realise the need to find a way to connect to each other much more effectively. In East Africa, because there’s been a lot of vibrant philanthropic organisations for a while, there’s an infrastructure organisation supporting the sector. In Southern Africa, I think the challenge has been that a lot of the work has been concentrated in South Africa, and we don’t really have a connected civil society sector. This has impacted on the rest of the region as far as the infrastructure is concerned. So, yes, there needs to be something there that people can rally around, otherwise it doesn’t take shape.

We are getting better at working together and being proactive and innovative around addressing these challenges. Ultimately, I think that’s what gets funders excited.

WV: We’ve been talking mostly about organisations that we support within the civic space programme, but do you guys want to say something about how you work with infrastructure to advance your community philanthropy work because those are also infrastructure organisations?

ND: Frankly, there’s a part of it that’s practical. There was some research done by Barry Knight about a decade ago that showed that, when there was some kind of support organisation to help the development of community foundations in a particular country, more were created in a shorter time frame. And we noticed that in the way we approach the development of community foundations, because a long-term objective of the Mott Foundation is to help support the creation and strengthening of local philanthropic institutions, the most successful strategy is to start with what we call a national-level community foundation support organisation that then helps create a movement within a particular country. The practical component of this is that we’ve got stuff going on in Spain, in Ghana, in Peru, in Ukraine, and so on, and we don’t have the capacity to actually be there. We’ll visit once or twice a year, but if you have a local actor that really understands the country, the policy environment, the civil society environment, they can advance things better. The second practical component is that newly created community foundations can often use a little outside support. We try to be very careful not to provide too much of that because, after all, the whole point of a community foundation is for it to rely on local resources for local needs, but some matching grants or seed grants or funding for technical assistance to get things going is always helpful. It’s very difficult for us with the way our grantmaking structure is set up to make sometimes tiny – US$5,000, US$10,000, US$15,000 grants – so these national support organisations often act as intermediaries to do that. So we hope that after 10 years, 15 years or however long we’re supporting community foundations in the country, there’s a ready-made infrastructure organisation to support a broader field of community foundations in that place. ECFI [European Community Foundation Initiative] is a great example of a more continental kind of infrastructure that we also support, but we’ve also supported a lot of national level associations.

WV: Looking back on Mott’s investment in infrastructure one benefit of a strong and dynamic set of infrastructure organisations is that there are partners with whom we can work on a range of related issues. For example, when we want to support community foundation development, there’s an infrastructure that we can start building on, because some of your partners are national associations or foundations.

ND: I was going to point to Spain as a great example. Mott was funding EFC, then later there was a movement for national organisations, then Rosa [Gallego] was a big mover and shaker with DAFNE and now that’s merged into Philea, but in the meantime, she’s an important actor at the Association of Spanish Foundations, who are now what we call a CFSO, a Community Foundation Support Organisation, doing a lot of work on helping community foundations develop in Spain, and they are well positioned to do so because they already know the philanthropy scene well in Spain. IDIS in Brazil is another example. They’re part of the CAF Network, and they are themselves supporting the development of community foundations in Brazil.

What do the three of you see as having been the highs and lows of your involvement with funding infrastructure? What do you see as the kind of success stories?

WV: There are a lot of success stories. We’re struggling on the lows, maybe.

MM: Where Mott has been active in supporting philanthropy infrastructure, we have seen a growing sector, and a very vibrant sector. If I take the example of South Africa, when we started off, there wasn’t a philanthropy infrastructure organisation at all that focused specifically on promoting philanthropy, and Mott along with Ford were involved in initial conversations in the country about whether there could be a network of philanthropic organisations. In actual fact, when foundations eventually decided to come together, US foundations were invited as guests to allow the foundations in South Africa the space to connect to one another as a community. Mott was invited as and when they needed guidance and support, otherwise we took a back seat. Today, we have a very vibrant philanthropy network in South Africa, partly because Mott stayed in there and walked the journey with this group to a point where they can now say: ‘We have a strong network.’ In another example, the Africa Philanthropy Network was established by a group of grantmakers in Africa, some of whom were Mott grantees, and who understood the importance of infrastructure after they’d been exposed to similar structures elsewhere in the world. Although Mott didn’t directly have to establish these, it was through Mott’s investment in the other groups that we have this infrastructure, so being invested in the long term is really worthwhile. At the time, you don’t realise the ripple effects of the investment, but if we look back at the history, we start seeing the growth that Mott has contributed towards because of our longevity.

Although a strong ecosystem is still often under-appreciated, more funders are starting to realise its importance.

ND: I’ll give you another high. It’s a very specific example, but I’ll riff off that idea of longevity. When the pandemic hit, the legislation to provide what were called paycheck protection program loans in the US was initially only being written to support for-profit businesses, and the National Council of Nonprofits spearheaded a move to ensure that non-profit organisations were written into that legislation, which meant that during the pandemic, a lot of non-profits were able to keep their doors open because they were getting that.

And the National Council of Nonprofits is one of your grantees, yes?

ND: Yes, and not only a grantee, but there was a period from about 2017 to 2019 where we worked in coalition with several other funders who were responding to a sort of cry for help from Tim Delaney, the CEO, who was basically saying: ‘We’re too small for the task at hand, and we need to do some organisational restructuring.’ So I think there were six of us who said: ‘We all need to invest more to beef up this piece of infrastructure so that it has the capacity to play on both a federal policy level and a state policy level, as well as dealing with effective practice and other things.’ It seems to be popular nowadays to describe what philanthropy does as finding problems and coming up with solutions. The dilemma is that infrastructure is not a problem to be solved, it is an ongoing thing that needs to be there constantly. Sometimes, there’s not much for it to do because maybe the policy environment is good, or things are coming along very well and philanthropy is doing its job. But there are times when a crisis hits or challenges come up, and if you don’t have this kind of thing in place to be able to respond and react, you feel the need. And it isn’t always a negative thing, it could be a positive opportunity that was unforeseen that needs to be taken. So it’s having the patience to not be so focused on: what’s my immediate result? It’s understanding that this is something that needs to be there over the long term, and to be nimble and able to respond when called on. So going back to my original point, that National Council of Nonprofits’ advocacy was a high for us because it led to big money that really helped the non-profit sector out when it really needed it.

WV: Just building on that, one of the highs was seeing the role of the infrastructure broadly during the pandemic, both in terms of policy work that was done in different places, but also in the way resources were mobilised and ideas were shared, there was great solidarity among practitioners across the field. But there’s also a low in there, in that, what we also realised from that experience is there’s so many places where there is no infrastructure, there’s no ecosystem and in those places, we saw less money mobilised, poor policy frameworks for the sector and for philanthropy. One of the highs for me is that, as a programme officer for 25 years, I think Mott’s been incredibly fortunate to be part of some really exciting collaboratives. I’m thinking particularly about Europe, where I’ve worked with pooled funds doing some really interesting work, and the way that those come about is often that you have a trusted relationship with your peers in the foundation field, somebody has an idea, they look for partners and they turn to people they know and people they have a relationship with, whose programmes they understand and whose values they align with. And you have an infrastructure on which to realise your collaboration. Two recent examples of this dynamic for me are the European AI & Society Fund Society Fund and Civitates, which are both based at the Network of European Foundations. A lot of the relationships among the funders who are part of those initiatives grew out of years and years of going to EFC (now Philea) events or through other networks and associations. That’s something we shouldn’t take for granted. Those relationships don’t just happen, and if you’re not part of that ecosystem, you might not have that opportunity to participate in those things. As a funder to philanthropy infrastructure organisations, the low is always that many of the organisations from time to time face really tough financial situations, where there aren’t funders who are ready to give core operating support or even project support. Getting through those times is a low when you’re one of those funders who’s in it for the long haul, and you’re sticking with the organisation, you’re trying to help come up with a new business plan or consolidate its work and build new relationships. The highs are when it all comes together. WINGS is in a great place. Philea is in a stronger position following the merger. We’ve seen a number of infrastructure organisations consolidate over the last couple of years.

Is that your main frustration as a long-standing funder of infrastructure, that more funders don’t get the need for it?

ND: It is a frustration. We probably haven’t cracked the nut on good messaging yet for this. In the US at one time, there was a campaign for 1 percent for infrastructure. It went along and petered out after a while. A couple research studies have been done and, of late, a coalition of nine funders has supported a social sector infrastructure study by Urban Institute. It’s still in play because the idea is that this body of information will give a good picture of the sector and will then lead to conversations that will subsequently lead to action – first, amongst infrastructure organisations themselves to see where there are gaps, where there are opportunities, but then among funders to better understand what infrastructure is and what it should be funding. That, we hope, could lead to more funders supporting infrastructure.

MM: In Africa, the pandemic was definitely a crisis that didn’t go to waste, particularly for infrastructure organisations, because they saw the opportunity to demonstrate their value. If I take the example of the East Africa Philanthropy Network, who really put themselves out there and made themselves available to funders as they were figuring out how to respond to the pandemic, as a result, there’s now a lot more interest in supporting them. But, as I say, it took the pandemic. Although a strong ecosystem is still often under-appreciated, more funders are starting to realise its importance. What I’m also finding in Africa is that it is still mostly the US or European foundations that understand the value of these networks. There aren’t yet that many African philanthropists providing core support for philanthropic infrastructure.

There is a perception perhaps that infrastructure organisations are just service organisations. But, in reality, many are increasingly partners in addressing big challenges and big issues.

WV: And like many foundations, we at Mott have the benefit of staff having resources to participate in our infrastructure and go to conferences and take other learning opportunities. That’s also a way foundations can begin to understand the value of infrastructure.

ND: In the US, we have a thing called the Infrastructure Funders Group. It came about with myself, a guy from Hewlett, and a guy from Gates saying we all know each other, we can talk to each other, but what about some of our other colleagues who are actually funding infrastructure? So we decided to come together about twice a year and have open conversations, maybe under Chatham House Rules, so that we can talk amongst ourselves and understand what we’re doing. It’s not a formal entity, but simply a space where currently about 18 foundations will participate and chew over topics like racial equity, general operating support, or whatever we’re all doing and thinking about. It helps the people in that space to develop relationships and get to know one’s peers and then have people to turn to if there’s an area that several are really interested in and want to work together on it. It’s not forcing collaboration, but collaboration sometimes happens because of that kind of thing.

What are the key lessons that you’ve learned from funding infrastructure?

WV: Time and patience. A long period of time, a lot of patience. And finding different ways to engage. You’ve got two different ways of doing so as a funder. You can provide funding, obviously, and you can participate by going to conferences and joining working groups and all the things that are offered by different infrastructure type organisations, and, where appropriate, be active in the governance of those bodies. Those are my big lessons.

ND: Being mindful not to get caught in a bubble. There’s often a criticism: you’re only funding those big organisations, there’s so much that gets left out. So be mindful that you have to be listening and open and constantly examining who’s doing what, who’s being served, who’s not being served.

MM: Appreciating the role of a connector and using that as a way to support the growth of the infrastructure. As somebody who is involved in these spaces, I’m able to identify opportunities for resourcing and connecting conversations, and use that to really help strengthen the space.

ND: Just to clarify what I was saying, it’s important to gently be always asking our infrastructure organisations to be mindful of how well they’re serving and who they’re serving. I’ll never forget when I was deputy director of the International Renaissance Foundation in Ukraine and hearing that we had made a US$12,000 grant to some organisation called EFC. And at the time, I’m thinking: ‘What?!’ Because that was the size of our typical grant in Ukraine in the 90s, and saying: ‘My God, we could have spent that money on health outcomes or education or whatever, and we’ve spent that much money, which seemed like a lot to me then, for somebody to go to some fancy conference in Brussels or what have you!’ Obviously, my thinking has changed greatly over the years, but I do think that the infrastructure needs to be mindful that it isn’t spending too much of its energy and efforts on navel-gazing, but is always also looking out so that it remembers it’s not infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure, but it’s infrastructure for the sake of the broader sector.

You have probably put your finger the reason a lot of funders don’t go for infrastructure because they think they could spend that money on education or health or something that gives a practical benefit very quickly.

WV: It seems very inward looking, and that’s a challenge for infrastructure funding. As Nick said, there is a perception perhaps that infrastructure organisations are just service organisations. But, in reality, many are increasingly partners in addressing big challenges and big issues. All over the world, I think we’re seeing that really happen. There’s so much exchange, there’s so much peer learning that goes on across the sector through its infrastructure. We are getting better at working together and being proactive and innovative around addressing these challenges. Ultimately, I think that’s what gets funders excited. Going back to the very beginning of our conversation, you see infrastructure as part of solving big challenges and big issues. It’s not a place where you go just to have a bit of exchange with your friends.

Andrew Milner is Features Editor at Alliance magazine.

This interview is being shared free-to-read as a part of the Propel Philanthropy interview project. In addition to this article series, Propel Philanthropy collects stories demonstrating that modest grants can drive but results. You can learn more here.