Beyond the Rhetoric (2007): Given foundations’ unique situation, what drives their decision making? To what extent are foundation CEOs’ and program officers’ decisions guided by strategies?

Key Findings

• All respondents talked about their goals primarily in terms of creating external social impact.
• Respondents believe that strategy provides significant benefits to private foundations, and they overwhelmingly describe the use of strategy in positive terms
• Although respondents acknowledge – and often extol – the advantages of having a strategy, the majority of frameworks they describe do not meet our basic definition of a strategy.
• Four distinct categories of decision makers emerged from our analysis of individual respondents’ descriptions of their decision-making frameworks.
• Respondents from the same foundation frequently fall into different decision-making categories.

Our findings suggest a fundamental disconnect between what foundation CEOs and program officers believe about the importance of strategy and their use of it in their daily work.

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