I find this very fascinating. Just out of curiosity, how often to come across organizations that you would turn down if it was your decision to give them a grant? For whatever reason: wastefulness, greediness, or just plain pointless.
Actually the main reason is risk. I have a client right now with plenty of money to pay me that really wants me to do grants for them but they're not a quality client and I believe they will be turned down by most grantmakers and that's not how I work. They have some PR and governance issues.
There are also some clients (or grantmakers) that simply turn me off. Not common, but it happens. E.g. a certain kind of religious foundation only granting to those who contribute to their world view (with all respect to religion in general though), or a corporate foundation whose name I just don't feel like applying to (sorry McDonald's, you just leave a bad taste in my mouth).
It feels weird being part of mining companies (and philanthropists) paying funds to do good when what their source of money did was not good, but you weigh up the whole world and realise it's better sometimes to just help community projects happen, you've got to have balance somewhere.
Usually every grant project makes me tear up at least once, out of empathy to those I'm helping. That's what it's all about.
