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• Foundations can be influential in determining what information is available to policymakers, opinion leaders and the public on the issues being debated. Nonprofit policy and advocacy organizations face particularly difficult fundraising challenges. Unlike funding for direct-service organizations, policy and advocacy organizations have limited sources for funding. Few have wealthy individual patrons or produce revenue-generating materials, so most have to rely for the bulk of their funding on foundations. Because of this reliance, foundation support is one of the key determinants of what information is available to inform decision makers, and whether those without their own resources will be able to participate in the debate.
• Effective public policy grants can be either high cost or low cost. TCWF’s grants have ranged from multimillion-dollar public education campaigns to several thousand dollars for a report. Both high-profile/high-cost and low-profile/low-cost grants can be successful. Like any other type of grantmaking, high-profile/high-cost grants can also be costly failures. 
• A foundation does not have to fund the full gamut of policy activities to have an impact. Our grantmaking has ranged from a series of complementary policy activities to pursue the policy goals of an initiative, to a single grant for a report analyzing the potential effects of proposed policy. Such an analysis can sometimes have a substantial impact on a policy debate. 
• Policy changes do not happen overnight. It is important for the funder and the grantee to be realistic about the time it takes to change policy. It is frequently a long-term process subject to multiple variables, many of which are beyond the control of the grantee. For example, it took six years for our Violence Prevention Initiative grantees to achieve their goal of a state ban on the production and sale of Saturday night specials. The best grantees know how to use the media and grassroots to keep an issue before the public and educate policymakers until action is taken. 
• It can be difficult to attribute a policy achievement to the actions of specific grantees. Grantees are always eager to claim credit for a policy change, but frequently such change is the result of the combined effort of several organizations and political factors outside the control of the grantees. Sometimes the full impact of the work of a grantee may not be realized until years after the end of the grant. Grantees should therefore be asked to identify objectives that are measurable and indicative of the steps necessary to achieve their policy goals. An objective stating that a grantee is to achieve a specific policy change is generally unrealistic and may in fact cross the line into an area of lobbying that is prohibited for private, independent foundations such as TCWF.
• Expert legal counsel is a must. While there is a great deal that foundations can do in the area of public policy grantmaking, it is important, particularly if the issue is controversial, to have access to expert legal counsel. The attorney should be well-versed in federal tax law applicable to foundations and state laws governing political activities. It is also important to understand that the answers you get from an attorney will often depend on the questions asked. If you ask to be totally protected, you’ll probably get a very conservative answer; if you ask how far you can push the envelope, you’ll get a more liberal opinion. ⁵

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