Getting to no

"Be hard on the problem, soft on the people."
— Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes

Funding things means allocating scarce resources, which means turning stuff down, which means saying no to people who work very hard on big problems. That's not always fun; it's also easy to get wrong and important to get right.

This should be table stakes, and yet, even impact-obsessed grantmakers sometimes really step in it somehow. Bad rejections – dragging it out needlessly, dressing up a 'no' in gobbledygook, sending garbled signals – are incredibly wasteful. I've screwed this up enough times by now; odds are that you have, too.

So, here are a few learned-the-hard-way heuristics for rejecting, downsizing, or exiting grant support – distilled from years of sitting across the table from people I respect immensely and getting to no.

Simple rules for saying no

Say it as soon as you know it

Because delivering bad news is uncomfortable, rejections often have the longest unnecessary stays on my task list. I've mumbled to myself I 'need a bit more time to chew on it,' knowing full well that, no, I'm not coming around to this one.

If you consistently find yourself kicking that one pitch email into the tomorrow pile, ask yourself if there really is a chance you'll fund this group. If the answer is no, tell them! It helps their planning, saves everyone involved time, and propels you through a mutually unpleasant part of the process.

If you don't have something true to say, don't say it

Another rejection-temptation is to fudge the message to avoid upsetting anyone. This tendency – which often really is an unexamined instinct to relieve your own momentary discomfort – manifests as the grantmaker's 'it's not you, it's me.' Instead of a simple no, you get 'we don't have any bandwidth right now' or 'we don't support anything in this area.' Of course, these are perfectly reasonable things to say – but only if they're true! If it's not actually true, and you end up funding something else in exactly that area six weeks later, you only create confusion and frustration.

I've learned this one by trial and error, emphasis on the error part. A few years ago, I rejected a proposal with the rationale that it was outside our geographic scope. This was half-true at most; in reality, I just wasn't convinced by this group's track record. It was an easy out at the time, but ultimately just created headaches when they came back 6 months later with an ambitious proposal to pivot their program focus entirely to our stated geographic priority, and I had to explain that, no, this won't cut it either.

People will pay intense attention to your rationale for not supporting them, and a well-intentioned half-truth will, at best, fall apart under scrutiny and, at worst, send good folks on a wild detour. By the same token, if you don't have something important to say, don't say it. Given the weight placed on your rejection, it's just not the time to share your weakly held takes on matters of mere taste, unless you want them to live rent-free in someone's mind for months.

If you do have something useful to say, now's the time

The flipside here is that if you're genuinely confident about how someone might do better, you have a unique chance to shape their thinking. If I'm going to do this, I look for the conditions where funders know best — perhaps because of information advantages or my bird's-eye view of what the field needs — and am clear about whether implementing this feedback could change their future funding prospects.

Becoming OK with No

Most of the verbal gymnastics we inflict on others when struggling to articulate a 'No' are downstream from our own discomfort; resolving that discomfort is far more effective than any framing advice I can offer.

In my case, I got into fighting pandemics largely because of the heroic people who work long days to save this world from the misery of infectious disease, and now I'm here, telling those very same people that their work isn't worth funding. I spent my first year or so as a grantmaker coming to terms with this; I now see more clearly the right mental frames to lean on when rejecting worthy grants and breaking drastic budget cuts with non-profit leaders.

Do Your %@#! Job

Kevin Starr is right to put it bluntly, 'Funders, Do Your %@#! Job'. Because non-profits generally lack the feedback loops enjoyed by commercial ventures (profit) and elected officials (votes), funders can offer one of the few genuine sources of accountability. This accountability is your job; if you're not making and acting on clear-eyed impact assessments, then you're not really serving the field as you ought to. (In other words, what are we really doing here..?)

Feel the opportunity cost

Steep opportunity costs are the reason you must do your job. When you're directing tens of millions of dollars – and many bright careers – towards speculative tech governance work, it stings to remember that those resources could instead crush malnutrition or lead poisoning. Strong medicine indeed, but it ultimately steadies my hand to remember that a well-placed 'no' is exactly how I steward those resources.

Focus on the "yes" part

Every dollar spent has an opportunity cost, yes, but the flipside is that every dollar saved can get another glorious destination! Hold onto that glory when delivering a tough call to conserve resources.

Hard on the problem, soft on the people

If you're like me, you'd like to treat colleagues with respect, honor their hard work, and be someone who uplifts rather than disempowers others in your interactions with them. Well, then just do that!

Look your colleagues in the eyes, reflect sincerely on their efforts to do good, and express your gratitude. Treating people well every day (obviously the right thing anyway!) builds the security and goodwill that let you get to no with even the best of people.

Eliezer says: Buy your warm fuzzies and your impact separately.

Closing

Rejecting really exciting, earnest, and heartwarming stuff should be hard; if it's ever completely comfortable, you're probably losing touch with something valuable.

We don't have to eliminate discomfort, as long as we find ways to work through it productively and with integrity. If we're honest, judicious, and clear about our roles, we can do right by both the people and the mission.

— Joshua