For Immediate Release
CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY RELEASES NEW REPORT ON GRANTEE SURVEY RESULTS
Listening to Grantees: What Nonprofits Value in their Foundation Funders Identifies Key Predictors of Grantee Perceptions of Foundations
Cambridge, MA: A new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy
draws on a survey of thousands of grantees of 30 large private and
community foundations to describe the key dimensions that nonprofits
value in their foundation funders. The report offers the first ever
large-scale and systematic analysis of grantee perceptions of foundations
and debunks a number of myths concerning the relationship between
grantees and foundations.
Since early 2003, the Center for Effective Philanthropy has surveyed
more than 16,000 grantees of 87 foundations, receiving more than
9,000 responses. Listening to Grantees: What Nonprofits Value
in their Foundation Funders analyzes results from CEP's spring
2003 survey round, in which more than 6,000 grantees of 30 foundations
were surveyed and nearly 3,200 completed responses were received.
"It is not easy for nonprofits that depend on foundation funding
to provide direct, candid feedback to their funders," said Phil
Buchanan, Executive Director of the Center for Effective Philanthropy
and a co-author of the report. "Yet grantees have a crucial perspective
on the performance of foundations. Our objective in our surveying
has been to break through this dynamic by gathering confidential
and comparative data on grantee perceptions of foundations. We then
distill what we learn for the benefit both of individual foundations
and the foundation field generally."
CEP's analysis of grantee ratings of foundations identified three
key dimensions nonprofits most value in their foundation funders.
Foundations that performed well on these dimensions were more likely
to have grantees who rated them positively in terms of overall satisfaction
as well as perceptions of foundation impact on the grantees' fields,
communities, and organizations:
- Quality of Interactions with Foundation Staff: fairness, responsiveness, and approachability
- Clarity of Communications of a Foundationšs Goals and Strategy: clear and consistent articulation of objectives
- Expertise and External Orientation of the Foundation: understanding of fields and communities of funding and ability to advance knowledge and affect public policy.
"These key dimensions outweigh others that 'conventional wisdom' in the foundation
field has often held up as the keys to grantee satisfaction, such
as receipt of general operating support or even grant size," said
Kevin Bolduc, Associate Director of CEP and a co-author of the report.
The report outlines a number of implications of these findings for foundation leaders. One implication, for example, is that foundations need to invest the necessary resources to perform well on the three dimensions nonprofits most value. The report's authors note that high-quality interactions depend on adequately trained and compensated program staff - and that knowledge and expertise on the part of foundation staff cannot be developed without some investment.
"Nonprofits value highly foundation characteristics that require administrative, non-grant dollars," said Buchanan. "The tendency in the current environment of heightened scrutiny of foundation costs is for foundation boards, in particular, to focus single-mindedly on administrative cost ratios with a bias that lower is always better. But the fact is, not all administrative costs are created equal and some clearly generate important and valued benefits to nonprofits."
Seven other implications for foundations are also described, many
of which are informed by CEP's work presenting individual foundations
with their grantee survey results, through an assessment tool called
the Grantee Perception Report (GPR).
"Our experience presenting GPRs to foundation boards and staff
has allowed us to understand more fully the practical implications
of these findings for foundations," said Judy Huang, Senior Research
Analyst at CEP and a co-author of the report. "We have seen that
most of these foundations are considering changes as a result of
seeing their grantees' perceptions on a comparative basis."
In addition to describing the key dimensions nonprofits value in their foundation funders, the report also presents a range of new data on foundation-grantee interactions:
- The average number of hours grantees report spending fulfilling administrative requirements over the life of a grant - from proposal creation to evaluation - is 62. Nearly half of that time comes in the proposal creation process alone.
- The average grant turnaround - from submission of a grant proposal to receipt of a clear commitment of funding - is 3.4 months, but averages varied widely by foundation, from under two months to over a year.
- A relatively low proportion of grantees report receiving assistance from foundations in areas such as strategic planning (17 percent) or financial planning (6 percent).
CEP's grantee survey work grew out of its 2001-2002 Foundation Performance Metrics
Pilot Study, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, David and Lucile
Packard Foundation, and Surdna Foundation. During that study, CEP
created a framework for overall foundation performance assessment
and suggested that, for a number of measures in that framework, comparative
grantee perceptions could serve as useful indicators of foundation
performance. A pilot survey of grantees was conducted in 2002, setting
the stage for the larger-scale efforts described in this report.
To obtain a copy of the report, please click here.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY
The Center for Effective Philanthropy's mission is to provide management and governance tools to define, assess, and improve overall foundation performance. In addition to the grantee survey work, a number of other initiatives are underway to develop a more robust set of data for foundation leaders on key issues.
- CEP's Foundation Governance Project seeks to identify key challenges
and effective practices in the foundation boardroom.
- Seminars and a Case Study series seek to spotlight exemplars in areas such as performance assessment or strategy development.
- A pilot version of a staff survey allows foundation leaders to understand staff views on key dimensions related to a foundation's organizational effectiveness.
- CEP has begun to develop a robust set of operational benchmarking
data, allowing foundations to understand how they compare to other
similar foundations in areas such as the ratio of program officers
to active grants.
Major current funders include The Atlantic Philanthropies, David and Lucile Packard
Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation,
and Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation. The Center is also funded
by earned revenue from its assessment tools and seminars. 
