Laura and John Arnold Foundation: COVID-19: Announcing Grantee Accommodations

Email from Arnold Ventures dated Monday, April 20, 2020 

Announcing New Grantee Support

Dear Friends and Partners,

We hope you, your family, friends, and colleagues remain safe and healthy. As our grantees, your needs and well-being are foremost in our minds.

In our last update, we committed to partnering with you to find solutions to the many challenges COVID-19 presents for your work. Since then, many of you have reached out, and together we’ve worked on COVID-related requests for more than 100 active grants.

At Arnold Ventures, it’s in our DNA to analyze this evidence of your needs to seek broader solutions. Today I’m writing to announce a set of accommodations we’re offering to all grantees, based on what we’ve observed.

In light of COVID-19, we are:

  1. Cancelling scheduled interim reports due in 2020. This will occur automatically. Changes will be reflected in the Grantee Portal by April 30, 2020. Payments that currently follow an interim report will be made as scheduled in the grant agreement, unless a specific request is made otherwise (see #4 below). Please note the interim report record will still exist in the Grantee Portal, and the report status will say “Cancelled (CV-19).” To the extent that you have materials prepared that you wish to submit, you may still do so via the Grantee Portal. Your Initiative Lead will follow up if an exception is required.
  2. Extending scheduled final reports due in 2020 by three (3) months. This will occur automatically. Again, changes will be reflected in the Grantee Portal by April 30, 2020. If we have already accommodated an extension for you in the past month, it will remain unchanged unless you make a specific request at a later time (see #5 below).
  3. Loosening adherence to AV’s reporting requirements. While we still ask that grantees submit future grant reports via the Grantee Portal, we will accept report updates that have been used for other funders, particularly with respect to answering the Narrative Questions. Financial Updates should at a minimum continue to include an accounting of total funds spent to date, even if the format does not follow our standard guidelines.
  4. Releasing scheduled payments earlier. We understand your work is shifting and we do not want you to experience cash flow constraints. If you would like to seek this accommodation, please contact your Initiative Lead and Grants Manager to discuss. Payments will be made within 1-2 weeks of such a request. Otherwise, any outstanding payments will be made in accordance with the schedule in your grant agreement.
  5. Extending timelines for grant reports beyond 2020, individual milestones, or agreement terms. We encourage you to think holistically about all remaining activities for your grant(s) and let us know if this includes re-evaluating the scope of individual milestones. If so, please contact your Initiative Lead and Grants Manager to discuss.
  6. Supporting budget reallocations. Grant funds will not be rescinded if a program, conference, or other grant activity is cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19. We understand you may have non-refundable costs, and we will work with you to repurpose grant funds to the fullest extent possible. If this is the case, please contact your Initiative Lead and Grants Manager to discuss.

Please note that some of these options may be limited for expenditure responsibility grantees, universities, fiscal sponsors, and governmental units. We will work with these grantees to provide as much flexibility as appropriate.

We hope these changes will help reduce administrative burdens, relieve stress, and enable you to better focus on your mission. If you have questions or suggestions for additional ways we can provide flexibility, we are eager to listen and help. Please reach out to GrantsTeam@arnoldventures.org.

Lastly, you are doing vital research and work that far exceeds the scope of your grant(s) with us. We want to hear about COVID-19’s broad implications for your work and the needs you’re observing every day. How has COVID-19 impacted the communities you serve? What are the greatest needs you’re seeing that philanthropy could help address? If you would be willing, please send your thoughts to covid@arnoldventures.org.

Thank you for all you are doing to keep moving your critical work forward. We are grateful for your partnership.

Kelli Rhee
President and Chief Executive Officer

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