Do the grant application flaws identified by Project Streamline reflect your own experience?

In my experience, the Project Streamline description of cumbersome grant making processes describes the experience we've had with many funders.  That said, I know of specific funders who have implemented approaches to address many of these challenges and obstacles to nonprofits seeking funds, such as Verizon and their entirely online application, the National Endowment for the Arts and their Challenge America fast track grants, and many (but not enough!) funders who provide multi-year grants.

I definitely believe that there's WAY more to be done in this area.  I'm guessing that one of the differences between funders who do (streamline) and funders who don't (streamline) is the degree to which the funder feels connected to the pool of potential grant-seekers, i.e. if they feel part of the community of which grant-seekers are one of their partners in achieving their mission through philanthropy.  One sign of this is funders like the Hyams and Boston foundations both of whom implement "relationship" approaches to streamlining, things like asking grantseekers to first talk to program officers (or submit simple letters of interest) about their prospective program, or keep organizational background information on file so that recurring applications from organizations are simplified.

So perhaps what we need is more streamlining of the grant making processes and an augmenting of the relationship-building ones.

I think it would be interesting to consider how something like the OMB's enforcement and monitoring of the federal Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.) could be developed for the philanthropic community.