There’s a subliminal message that grantees seem to play across their brains the day they receive a foundation check: Lips will be zippered from this point forward.

You’ll notice that in our "critics" cover story, those offering negative opinions about grantmakers are mostly arm’s-length observers. What’s missing are comments from those closer in; those who have routine and ongoing relationships with foundations. You could call that category any of these things: foundation customers, constituents, collaborators, partners. Most often we call them grantseekers and grantees.

Grantmakers may be especially sensitive to being bashed, publicly or otherwise, because they are less used to it. A grantmaker’s day is more than just devoid of criticism—it’s filled with shovels-full of sycophancy. What would that do to perspective?

It’s not that grantees have no complaints. In fact, the opposite is true. It’s just that some force keeps most of them from saying out loud anything critical about people with power over them. It reminds me of the "Wizard of Oz" scene in which Aunt Em, outraged by a tiff about Toto, tells her mean old neighbor Elmira Gulch, "Just because you own half the land in this county doesn’t mean you have the power to run the rest of us. For 23 years I’ve been dying to tell you what I really think of you..."

But right then, as she’s about to blurt out the chest-unburdening truth, her self-censor kicks in. "But, being a Christian woman," says a distraught Em, "I just can’t say it."

Imbalance of Power

"It’s natural that grantseekers don’t want to bite the hand that feeds," says Catherine Lerza, a foundation executive. "I don’t know why people expect it would be otherwise. Most corporate people wouldn’t go into their boss’s office and start pointing out all the things they don’t like about their boss’s style. And most grantees wouldn’t do that with a grantmaker, either."

At a National Network of Grantmakers meeting a few years back, one speaker was memorable for his blunt appraisal of the power imbalance between those who ask for money and those who grant it. "Let’s stop pretending," said Eli Lee, of the National Organizers Alliance of Albuquerque, "We will never be equal with funders. The dynamic of money—and the imbalance of power that goes with it—will always be there."

Some grantmakers have taken up talking about a related topic: How the lack of criticism—or lack of feedback of any kind, really—is due to more than tongue-biting grantees. The foundation institution is untested by markets, ballot boxes or, until recently, muckraking reporters. (In fact, I think pointing out the field’s lack of fetters in the opening lines of a speech or article has become the new requisite, replacing the old de Toqueville quote.) We know the freedom to be creative in problem-solving is philanthropy’s defining characteristic. We know foundations were not accidentally set up this way; this freedom was and still is a good idea. And we know that the last thing foundations want is to squander this freedom.

But so often the talk stops there, and I’m longing to hear more on the part about what we do to prevent this defining characteristic from getting chipped away. The part about, to whom much public trust is given, much self-policing is expected. The part that points out points out that the freedom to fund daring projects and not care what the critics say is different from the freedom to be unapproachable and not care what the critics say.

As I’m writing this, the Rockefeller Foundation 1997 annual report has just hit the mail. Peter Goldmark’s president’s letter reflects back on his ten years at the foundation before he left it last December. He wrote: "What is needed is bracing self-examination, and the balance, rigor and nerve to face one’s own shortcomings and requirements." There are steps foundations can that would, as he put it, "shore up...the occasional wobbling in standards of professional behavior and personal interaction" that takes place in the grantmaking field, as it does in other fields.

So, criticism of grantmakers from grantees will continue to be rare. Self-criticism is not an end to itself. And criticism from any source, inside or outside the field, is really only useful when it’s used to inform constructive action steps.