The Leader Grant Seekers Have Been Waiting For

For all the talk of “partnership,” funders and nonprofits do not understand each other. When 93% of foundations say they understand grantees and only 53% of nonprofits agree, it’s more than a perception gap. It’s a barrier to a financially healthy sector.

How can we align the pillars of our charitable sector at a time when they don’t convene regularly, and when they do, they self-censor?

Enter Akilah Watkins, President and CEO of Independent Sector. Hers is a national organization that convenes nonprofits, foundations, and corporate giving programs. As all three experience shifting realities due to governmental and societal changes, she sees frank, cross-sector conversation as essential.

The challenges facing Watkins’ membership are vast—and urgent. I spoke with her at IS’s National Summit in Atlanta and left convinced that she is building a rare space where truth-telling between funders and grantees is a core part of the value system.

The Grant Seeker

Watkins knows what it’s like to pursue grants. Before she joined IS in 2023, she led the Center for Community Progress, which helps state and local governments turn vacant properties into vibrant places. Her multiple executive roles have required extensive work with foundations.

“Nothing trains you for this sector more than being a grant seeker,” she told me. “It’s what got me where I am now.” Watkins understands the friction that can hang in a room occupied by both foundations and social impact organizations, since each feels tension around the other. Grant seekers clamor to speak with their big prospects, while grant makers shirk from anticipated solicitations.

Most of IS’s contributors are foundations, so it would be easy for Watkins to let them dominate her organization’s platforms. Yet she is determined to balance members’ voices. After all, IS’s core differentiator is its range of stakeholders.

She aims to unify her members: “How do we create a conversation where everyone sees themselves as part of the future?” She is positioning IS as central to the answer.

This year’s National Summit featured sessions about post-grant collaboration, the benefits of mergers and acquisitions, and evolving models of impact—all rarely-discussed topics among a mixed room foundations and grantees. It’s worth noting there aren’t many mixed rooms of foundations and grantees.

The Organizer

Watkins called IS’s National Summit “the beginning of a movement.” She has grand views on what comes next. “This is a time to strengthen our sector. We use the word movement because we need to move to another place.”

She came to philanthropy as a community organizer and is channeling that experience for the health of all organizations under the IS umbrella. “Any time there is societal change, there is a movement,” Watkins said. “If we want to sustain that movement over time, that’s the role of organizations. The civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement…that work has to live somewhere.”

“The dichotomy is not movements versus institutions,” she explained. “Institutions have to be reborn, recreated.”

She doesn’t just want foundations to invest in organizing. She sees them as necessary participants in strengthening the charitable sector.

The Visionary

As part of her holistic approach, she seeks to activate foundation board members, an overlooked but central grant-making demographic.

So she is spending time in front of those boards. “The power relies on trustees. It relies on [their] education…[They must] see the community. Get out of the boardroom. All of these actions lead to healthy work.”

She’s excited about the growing number of non-traditional board members. As corporate types slowly give way to community activists and others with nonprofit backgrounds, everything from applications to awards stands to better reflect grantees’ realities.

The Framework

Independent Sector offers something rare—a chance to engage with funders even when your organization is ineligible for their grants.

If that seems like a waste of time, consider this: When you’re not clamoring to speak with a foundation staffer about dollars, you can relax. You can ask different questions. You might learn about the realities of a program officer’s day, or how the funding ecosystem works. You might even gain confidence that leads to more open conversations with your organization’s current investors.

You’re paying it forward when you hold frank conversations with foundation staff that might never fund your organization. When you convey the benefits of flexible giving, you might just sway the listener’s next giving decisions.

Watkins is creating forums for this kind of exchange. “We’re asking people to come together, and in that alignment, we are stronger. We are trying to change the ethos of the sector. Historically, I don’t think we have.”

When the person tasked with bridging philanthropy’s divides declares, “I’m still a grant seeker,” as Watkins did in our conversation, it signals an opening.

She knows what you’re holding back from funders. She’s learning what they’re holding back from you. And she’s building a space where both sides can finally level with each other.