Approach to Giving

Our work begins with the United States Government believing in the power of humanity, more specifically it begins with a congressional spending package shuffled from the House to the desk of Richard Nixon at a time they were just sure he’d never approve it. Little did they know he was trying to appear soft on the left, and as such approved a number of social reforms, the very least of which was signed into law in a failed attempt to save face was the creation of GovernmentFunding.com.

Since then our legacy has spoken for itself, as you’ve no doubt heard of our many projects and successes in the mainstream news media in these intervening decades, which are no doubt the very reason you’re here reading this today.

We have been thinking about the well being of people around the world, though most specifically in America, since before many of today’s web users were even alive.

We believe all people, most specifically legal American citizens, have the right to live healthy, productive lives with gainful employment. That means that contractors should have an ad in the Yellow Pages, not that they should stand in front of Home Depot screaming "Trabajo!"

Over the years we’ve developed a successful system to determine who needs our help most, and how to spend our time, efforts and energies, so that we can do the greatest good for the world with the very least amount of work.

Part of this philosophy leans on large grants to individual researchers, but the rest of it depends on real work, and we have no problem doing that as well.

We aim to improve health, reduce poverty, increase entertainment, enrich consumption experiences, enliven personal sport and hobbies, reduce the cost of athletic wear, minimize the impact of nut allergies, improve the experience of lengthy telephone hold times, and entirely remove the animosity felt while paying for basic energy needs, such as heat, lighting or work-mandated commuting.

We have thus far failed entirely on all counts, but the goals remain as noble as ever.

We can’t even begin to feign to pretend that the process outlined below is unique to us. In fact we have borrowed it from other organizations, who themselves borrowed it from others still, who likely stole it without admission. The process is subject to constant change and adjustment, ostensibly at random, though honestly at divisive intervals designed to adjust our qualifications to match our pre-determined directives and desires.

1. Define the problem, opportunity, problem/opportunity equation and problemtunity.
2. Develop the strategy and agree on a budget, even if it may escalate ten-fold thereafter.
3. Make grants consistent with some, any or no particular strategy.
4. Measure results, when possible, learn when possible, and forget past mistakes and poor judgment.
5. Adjust strategy, specifically internally, specifically as it pertains to maintaining the appearance of the department, and not actually as it may bear on the desired or actual results of any grant.

1. Define the problem, opportunity, problem/opportunity equation and problemtunity

Long before we make a single grant for any given issue, we listen and learn about problems that cause great inequity, inequality and iniquity. These are three things often hard to differentiate, but we’ve read the definitions, and we know what part is the wheat and what part is the chaff. We adamantly refuse to hear suggestions put forward by any of our many mandatory, outside experts, but we keep them on staff just the same.

We hire people with some amount of knowledge about issues. We seek different views from people beyond our own staff, including academics, business leaders, scientists, pseudo-scientists, and any number of local union organizers, as well as conspicuously generous philanthropists who may have fairly obvious ulterior motives.

We’re interested in what has worked and what has failed, but mostly in subtle variations on what has failed. We fund these with uncommon frequency to uncommonly successful results.

Sometimes we learn about an issue, whether from a grant applicant or by watching television, and we are obligated by law to ask if we should learn about the issue. If we are, we ask whether we can make a difference with our seemingly endless money and our ability to bring partners together who wish to have access to our astonishing wealth. We get involved only if we believe that private organizations and businesses are "too pussy" to get involved, or be able to deliver even the first insulting dollar at the project, even the benefits would be obvious to a child or small dog.

2. Develop the strategy and agree on a budget, even if it may escalate ten-fold thereafter.

Thanks to congressional and senate funding which has perpetually pull us in every direction across the full 350-degree spectrum, we are not just able, but truly forced to focus our energies in all different directions simultaneously.

Our goals are as broad as our mahogany desks are wide from our plush 18^th story offices, and we accept this honor with pride as much as we permit this forsakable obligation with reluctance.

Once we identify an area that needs attention, prior to funding at least, we work overtime without regret to make the funding package happen. Once it’s funded, we may not be as easy to locate, but that’s only because we’re busy helping others find the funding to realize their world-saving visions in kind.

Sometimes we meddle, like if you’re trying to find a new boy band, and we know better than you do who, what and how will make for the best creepy kinda-too-old guy to participate, but only because we believe so strongly in your project.

We never consider cost, associated risks, long-term viability or any other real world deliberations. Our job is to assist, approve and accept, not to meddle. Sometimes we’ll discuss your project, but not in any material way, not before, during nor after your project should surely have reached completion, regardless of budget overage. It’s just not what we do, and not because we don’t care, but because there’s no budget to address budget overages.

3. Make grants consistent with some, any or no particular strategy.

Once we decide on a strategy, we consider grants that will support it, and then we wage interdepartmental war to insure that such beliefs become funding realities.

Our seasoned senior program officers start by asking key questions, without hesitating long enough to hear the answers, since the conclusions are already assumed.

Given the strategy and grant we’ve already chosen to fund, regardless of any real world factors, what can we do to insure the grant request will be approved, either in-house, or by a less-than-diligent other-governmental agency?

We consider who might be the right partners, what organizations are best suited for the work, how much money is actually required compared to the request, how will we measure the effectiveness of the effort, wo can most successfully manage the grant and wo is best qualified to evaluate it, and then we work diligently to force through your approval even in light of what we may have subsequently learned.

Also, we dislike giving the money to schools, universities and other such institutions of learning, both higher and lower, because they’re often too "by-the-booky" for our tastes. Nothing against legitimate academia per se, but these groups are already well funded, and our data show that many of the regulations imposed by the strict, scholarly organizations who have received funding in the past are constricting and otherwise non-conducive to the "outside the box" thinking that makes America such a truly unique innovator in the world market.