{"id":4402231487436,"date":"2026-04-30T10:44:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/?p=4402231487436"},"modified":"2026-04-30T11:19:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:19:13","slug":"foundations-created-the-jargon-crisis-heres-how-they-can-fix-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.philanthropy.com\/opinion\/foundations-created-the-jargon-crisis-heres-how-they-can-fix-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Foundations Created the Jargon Crisis. Here’s How They Can Fix It."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Keep up with everything happening in<\/em> The Commons<\/em><\/a> by<\/em> signing up for our monthly newsletter.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a perilous moment for philanthropy, the sector faces a problem of its own making: a failure to explain what it does clearly \u2014 even as it argues for the indispensability of its work. This is the inevitable result of a funder-created system that rewards abstract language and trains grantees to write for highly educated program officers and subject-matter experts rather than the people they serve. <\/p>\n\n\n

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My last two columns<\/a> encouraged nonprofits to change how they speak<\/a>, but that can\u2019t happen if foundations don\u2019t change their practices. Every touchpoint in the funding process, from letters of inquiry to progress reports to final evaluations, teaches nonprofits how to talk about their work. The language they use doesn\u2019t stay inside the funding relationship \u2014 it becomes the way organizations explain themselves to everyone else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting this pattern requires foundations to make changes in three areas: what they require in grant applications, what they fund, and what they model in their own communications. None of those changes works without the others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reward grant applications that replace jargon with clarity.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the most basic level, every grant application should require a public communication plan alongside descriptions of the program work. But funders shouldn\u2019t stop there. Nonprofits, after all, could learn to write the requested communications plan without changing their practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Instead, foundations should evaluate these plans based on whether they can be understood by people outside the sector, not just by grant reviewers. At minimum, the plan should answer three questions: Who outside the organization needs to understand this work? What should they be able to say about it? How will the organization reach them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting the scoring of applications right matters as much as requiring the plan. Foundations should avoid giving higher marks to proposals that describe work in terms of strategies and systems rather than people and results. When a reviewer marks down an applicant for stating simply that the group\u2019s housing program \u201chelps families find stable homes\u201d \u2014 rather than providing \u201cplace-based, community-driven affordable housing access\u201d \u2014 the foundation is perpetuating the language of think tanks and academia, not the language of public understanding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposals should be scored on whether someone outside the sector can identify who is helped, what changes for them, and why it matters. One way to test that standard is to include an outside reader in the review process, such as a local librarian, small-business owner, or other community member from the area a grantee serves. If that reader can\u2019t answer those questions clearly, the proposal should score lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fund the work of explanation.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Project grants typically fund the internal communications efforts needed to keep grant makers in the loop: progress reports, grant updates, and funder-facing summaries. They do not fund the work of explaining the project, or the organization as a whole, to people who aren\u2019t familiar with it. That broader communications work still gets done by whoever has an hour, in whatever language they absorbed from the last grant application they wrote. But that isn\u2019t nearly enough.<\/p>\n\n\n

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