CEP is working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to explore the potential to extend its approach and methodology to collect feedback from program beneficiaries and recipients—those whose lives a foundation directly seeks to improve.

In 2008, CEP and the Gates Foundation launched the Student Voice Initiative, which will determine the feasibility of developing tools for collecting comparative feedback from high school students about their relative experience attending Gates-funded schools.

The first phase of the Initiative is a planning phase, working closely with advisors from inside and outside the Gates Foundation, including school leadership and education experts. If the pilot planning is successful, the Gates Foundation is targeting a pilot implementation process with students in 2009.

There are multiple opportunities for expansion with this program. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hopes to use the Student Voice Initiative as a model for gathering feedback from those affected by the Foundation's work in other program areas, while CEP will explore the potential for creating similar tools to benefit other foundations.

For more information about CEP's work on constituent voice, contact Valerie Threlfall, Director —West Coast Office.