I had a strange experience with funders. Had a meeting with some people who might fund a proposal that addresses instituional racism in one of the places where I work. I realised during the meeting that I had no rapport with one key person and as the meeting went on, I realised it was because I was too plain speaking. I was stating things as I saw them instead of couching the proposal and my observations in 'nice' language. I forgot that this organisation could also be accused of institutional racism, despite its rhetoric and despite its mission statement - or what it funds...
I'm not sure whether its better that I just said things though - so that they heard it without the gloss of 'nice', comfortable, government-sponsored language. Maybe it's a good thing that a moment of reality filtered through in spite of the rules of the funding game - or maybe I'm simply justifying a bit of a political mistake...