Eileen Dryden, PhD and
Ranjani Paradise, PhD
Foundations gave away over $60 billion in 2014[1]. According to Social Solutions, reporting
expectations for these financial distributions have increased over the last
five years and are expected to increase even more over the next five years [2].
Driven largely by limited resources, these expectations increasingly focus on impact – evidence that shows what they
are funding ‘works.’ However, many
deserving grantee agencies that are stellar at providing services don’t
necessarily have the experience or skills to know how to evaluate the impact of
their work. Additionally, the
foundations themselves may not know quite what to ask. Foundations often fund an array of agencies
and programs whose goals have an implicit, if not explicit, alignment with
their own mission. In an attempt to speak to that mission and make it easier to
aggregate data in the end, many foundations create one generic reporting
template for all grantees to complete.
Unfortunately, this approach is not likely to truly capture the unique
contributions and impacts of each grantee.
Grantees get frustrated at trying to shoehorn their data into a report
that doesn’t quite fit, and foundations end up with data that is less than
compelling. Technical assistance from
experienced evaluators at ICH can help to address this problem.
OUR APPROACH
ICH works with foundations to clarify and focus their
grant-making goals and effectively document their own, as well as their
grantees’, impact. Our approach includes a number of activities that can be
utilized as a comprehensive package or individually, as needed.
Multi-level Logic
Modeling and Evaluation Planning
Collaborating with foundation staff, we develop an overarching, foundation-level logic model,
a visual that depicts the underlying theory of how their grant-making
activities will accomplish their goals.
Example of foundation level logic model
from
the Partnership for Community Health
(PCH) Excellence and Innovation Grant
Program.
This granting program has distributed over $17
million since 2014.
We also work closely with each grantee to develop a project-specific logic model. Through
this process we guide grant recipients to think about what their project can
really accomplish and to ensure that their activities link to their anticipated
outcomes.
Examples of grantee level logic models
from
the Partnership for Community Health
Excellence and Innovation Grant Program.
Working in partnership with each grantee, we develop evaluation plans that are meaningful
and relevant to them, while simultaneously measuring outcomes that align with
the foundation’s overarching goals. Using the grantee- and foundation-level
logic models as a guide, we facilitate discussions to prioritize outcomes to
measure and create evaluation plans that are focused, feasible, and useful.
This process fosters buy-in to evaluation on the part of the grantee.
Layered, Strategic
Reporting
We craft a tailored set
of evaluation measures for each grantee’s project that is derived directly
from their evaluation plan and flows naturally from the work they are doing.
This ensures that the reports submitted by grantees capture project-specific
outcomes that are connected to the foundation's key goals, making reporting a
useful and relevant activity for both the grantee and the foundation. We
provide technical assistance to
grantees, as needed, to develop data collection tools, and collect and analyze
their evaluation data.
We create summary reports
at multiple levels of detail to meet the needs of different audiences,
ranging from short, visual reports highlighting impact stories to in-depth data
summaries for tracking individual grantees’ progress against goals.
Comprehensive final reporting at the end of the grant period highlights program
impact by rolling up individual grantee accomplishments into the foundations’
overarching goals.
Collecting and Sharing
Lessons Learned
To help document the collective learning that occurs throughout
the implementation of each grantee’s project, we conduct qualitative interviews that allow us to gain a deeper understanding
of grantees’ experiences. We summarize and share back the qualitative findings
to ensure that future grantees can build upon the collective best practices and
lessons learned to optimize their work.
Finally, we facilitate learning
collaboratives among current and potential future grantees. At these forums, grantees have an opportunity
to share what they have learned and participants can informally network and
discuss projects. In this way, we ensure
that lessons learned are disseminated to those who can benefit most.
“I just shaved months off of my project
talking to someone I met here today.”
- Best Practices Forum participant
BENEFITS OF THIS APPROACH
This individualized, participatory approach generates a number
of benefits including helping to:
Ensure grant-making
success
✓
Foundations can monitor grantee progress and
jump in when needed to help ensure grantee success
✓
Foundations continually improve their own
grant-making process by learning from grantees’ experiences
Promote sustainability
✓
Provides grantees with data that they have prioritized as useful. This data can be leveraged for funding to
sustain their work beyond the grant period.
✓
Builds grantee capacity to ‘think evaluatively’
and participate more effectively in evaluation activities in the future
Demonstrate and expand
impact
✓
Foundations can readily demonstrate to their
board and other stakeholders how their grant-making activities support their
mission
✓
Because successes and lessons learned are
disseminated strategically, others can replicate and expand upon the
grant-supported work, magnifying the impact of the foundation’s grant-making
activities.
Given all of these benefits, our clients have found that with
the support of experienced evaluators, the typically onerous process of grant
reporting becomes a win-win for foundations and
grant recipients.
________________________________________________________________________
[1] http://data.foundationcenter.org (most current
data)
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