FBB announces changes to Humanist Giving program

Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) is excited to announce that the new year has brought some changes to our monthly giving program. The Humanist Giving program will now be known as the Humanist Grants program. This change was made because our programs, including our direct service programs – Humanist Action: Ghana, Humanist Disaster Recovery Teams and Drives, and the Beyond Belief Network – all involve giving. Humanist Grants shifts the emphasis to the grant awards that we are able to give through your monthly financial contribution to Humanist Grants.

FBB gave up to 10 grants a quarter in the past, but since 2012, we have had five main categories of beneficiaries. We have worked diligently to curate a number and range of options that offer our donors an ability to give as they desire, while still doing a great deal of good for each beneficiary. Fewer beneficiaries has meant a higher quality beneficiary that receives a significant financial award to further their programs.

While our Challenge the Gap Beneficiary program has been an important part of FBB in the past; connecting the humanist community and the liberal religious community on matters that we agree upon, it has been increasingly difficult to find exceptional beneficiaries in this category. We have put the Challenge the Gap program on hiatus in 2017-2018 in order to maximize our opportunities to give grants beneficiaries that meet our thorough vetting process. Another change to giving allocation is the checkoff box to support small grants/greatest need. This simplifies the categories to support in My FBB.

The central mission of the Humanist Grants Program will not be changing. We will continue to offer high-quality quarterly beneficiaries in Poverty and Health, Human Rights, Education, and the Natural World. We will continue to carefully select beneficiary organizations for impact and efficiency, and they will continue to have to pass our rigorous vetting process and adhere to the Program Mission and Values.

Foundation Beyond Belief has always been an option for the distribution of your monthly giving  As Humanist Grants moves forward, we want to highlight the direct service programs we have expanded, and encourage you to direct more of your donation to these programs as well. Our robust volunteering program, our increased reaction to natural disasters with drives and volunteers, and the expanding due diligence in the grants program which requires hours of careful vetting to be done effectively, all increase the cost of our operations. Plus, as with everything else, our basic administrative costs have increased as well. While we conduct fundraisers to cover these costs throughout the year, they just cover the bare minimum we need to continue.

Due to these changes, we have had to reset all 2017 My FBB giving allocations.  As a result of this reset, allocations are split five ways equally between Poverty and Health, Education, FBB, Human Rights and Natural World. At any time you may reallocate your monthly contribution by signing into My FBB in the upper right-hand corner of our website and reallocating based on your preferences. As always, we appreciate your support both of our beneficiaries in Humanist Grants, and the rest of the programs operated by Foundation Beyond Belief.

We're excited for the changes 2017 is bringing to Foundation Beyond Belief and we hope that you are too. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.