[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In what he termed his first annual letter,posted to the foundation s Web site in January 2009, he announcedsomething that had long been a matter of common knowledge but notpublicly revealed that the foundation s small-schools program had lefta great deal to be desired and had been reshaped.He said: Many of thesmall schools that we invested in did not improve students achieve-ment in any significant way.These tended to be the schools that didnot take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the prin- 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 27Introduction to the Paperback Edition 27cipal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum.We hadless success trying to change an existing school than helping to create anew school. The Gates Foundation can justifiably take as much pridein having made public that shortcoming as it can in its many other re-markable initiatives that are saving the lives of children and adults inAfrica and elsewhere.The work of The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), describedin Chapters 9 and 15, is contributing significantly to enabling founda-tions to become more transparent.The center has grown rapidly since itsfounding in 2001, largely because its survey, analytic, and statistical qual-ity is very high, and because foundations have found increasing value inits signature initial service offering, CEP s custom-tailored Grantee Per-ception Report (GPR), which surveys the recipients of a foundation sgrants about their experiences in working with the foundation.The find-ings of those individual foundation reports are given confidentially tothe foundations that commissioned them, but are not reported publiclyby foundation name.However, the substance of the findings in all thereports is aggregated, analyzed, and published with scattergrams show-ing the distribution of particular behaviors across the foundations rep-resented in all the GPRs, but without identifying where each foundationfalls on the diagrams.The very impressive CEP staff members, led by Phil Buchanan andhis deputy Kevin Bolduc, make private reports to the senior executivesand boards of trustees of the foundations that commission GPRs.Thesereports not only can provide specific comments, both positive and neg-ative, about impressions of the foundation as a whole but also can shedlight on grantee perceptions about individual programs and indeed in-dividual program staff members.It should be obvious that such com-ments about the foundation by those who experience its workingsfirsthand can be of great value to foundation leaders in improving theirfunctioning.Until the CEP developed the GPRs in 2002 and offeredthem in 2003, foundations had no way of gathering comparative data onhow they performed their funding role relative to other foundations.There were simply no measures by which to assess their own perform-ance in context.And without such external perspectives, the cocoon-likeatmosphere of most foundations was as damaging to the insiders as itwas to the outsiders who received foundation support. 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 2828 Introduction to the Paperback EditionAs one would expect, the most useful information for improvementpurposes tends to be not favorable but critical, and many of the confi-dential individual GPRs are very critical of individual foundation be-havior.To everyone s surprise, however, foundations on their ownmotion began posting at least some of the critical findings on their Websites.In 2004 The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation made newswhen it published the GPR on what its grantees regarded as its short-comings.22 In the past two years, many other foundations have followedHewlett s lead.In 2007, the president of the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation wrote letters to all its grantees apologizing for the commu-nication ratings it had received, which were discovered for the first timein its GPR.(It is noteworthy that, prior to the invention of the GPR, theRobert Wood Johnson Foundation had been among the first founda-tions to engage an external consultant to conduct a survey on the per-ceptions of its grantees, but, because it had no way of comparing thefindings with those of other foundations, it never discovered the sever-ity of the communications shortcomings found in its very first GPR.)Then, in March 2008, Rip Rapson, president of The Kresge Founda-tion, posted on its Web site its GPR, which revealed very low ratings onseveral dimensions of its critical relationships with grantees.Kresge sopenness about its shortcomings caused quite a stir in foundation andnonprofit circles.One hopes that other foundations will follow the ex-amples set so far by Hewlett, Robert Wood Johnson, and Kresge.As ofearly 2009, twenty-eight funders had posted the results of their GPRs ontheir own Web sites.Prior to 2004, there had been none.In the eight years since its founding, CEP has surveyed more than60,000 grantees of some 242 foundations, including eight of the topten.In addition, over the past several years, the GPR has been used byfoundations in Canada, Israel, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.Thenumber of foundations that have commissioned GPRs is growingsteadily year by year, with most foundations repeating it periodically tosee whether they are making progress in correcting shortcomings.In ad-dition to surveying grantees, CEP also surveys declined applicants to anyfoundations that commission such surveys.As of early 2009, thirty-onefoundations had commissioned such Applicant Perception Reports.In addition to its grantee and applicant perception reports, the CEPhas produced a steady stream of public reports on various aspects of 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 29Introduction to the Paperback Edition 29foundation performance across the sector.Among them are the Com-parative Board Report, which is the only self-assessment tool that in-cludes comparative data gathered through large-scale research onfoundation boards, and the Stakeholder Assessment Report, which pro-vides insights about a foundation s effectiveness by surveying stakehold-ers the foundation seeks to influence as part of its strategy.The Bridgespan Group, mentioned above, is another organizationnow only ten years old that is contributing substantially both to im-proving strategy in foundations and nonprofits and to informing thepublic about what it is learning through its strategic-management prac-tice.23 Bridgespan has found widespread acceptance among both foun-dations and large nonprofits, to the extent that its available time isbooked up more than a year in advance.Increasingly, many foundations,including Gates, Atlantic Philanthropies, The Edna McConnell ClarkFoundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the OmidyarNetwork, are supporting engagements Bridgespan does for theirgrantees.Moreover, Bridgespan s Knowledge Development Program, too,is experiencing rapid growth [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.In what he termed his first annual letter,posted to the foundation s Web site in January 2009, he announcedsomething that had long been a matter of common knowledge but notpublicly revealed that the foundation s small-schools program had lefta great deal to be desired and had been reshaped.He said: Many of thesmall schools that we invested in did not improve students achieve-ment in any significant way.These tended to be the schools that didnot take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the prin- 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 27Introduction to the Paperback Edition 27cipal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum.We hadless success trying to change an existing school than helping to create anew school. The Gates Foundation can justifiably take as much pridein having made public that shortcoming as it can in its many other re-markable initiatives that are saving the lives of children and adults inAfrica and elsewhere.The work of The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), describedin Chapters 9 and 15, is contributing significantly to enabling founda-tions to become more transparent.The center has grown rapidly since itsfounding in 2001, largely because its survey, analytic, and statistical qual-ity is very high, and because foundations have found increasing value inits signature initial service offering, CEP s custom-tailored Grantee Per-ception Report (GPR), which surveys the recipients of a foundation sgrants about their experiences in working with the foundation.The find-ings of those individual foundation reports are given confidentially tothe foundations that commissioned them, but are not reported publiclyby foundation name.However, the substance of the findings in all thereports is aggregated, analyzed, and published with scattergrams show-ing the distribution of particular behaviors across the foundations rep-resented in all the GPRs, but without identifying where each foundationfalls on the diagrams.The very impressive CEP staff members, led by Phil Buchanan andhis deputy Kevin Bolduc, make private reports to the senior executivesand boards of trustees of the foundations that commission GPRs.Thesereports not only can provide specific comments, both positive and neg-ative, about impressions of the foundation as a whole but also can shedlight on grantee perceptions about individual programs and indeed in-dividual program staff members.It should be obvious that such com-ments about the foundation by those who experience its workingsfirsthand can be of great value to foundation leaders in improving theirfunctioning.Until the CEP developed the GPRs in 2002 and offeredthem in 2003, foundations had no way of gathering comparative data onhow they performed their funding role relative to other foundations.There were simply no measures by which to assess their own perform-ance in context.And without such external perspectives, the cocoon-likeatmosphere of most foundations was as damaging to the insiders as itwas to the outsiders who received foundation support. 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 2828 Introduction to the Paperback EditionAs one would expect, the most useful information for improvementpurposes tends to be not favorable but critical, and many of the confi-dential individual GPRs are very critical of individual foundation be-havior.To everyone s surprise, however, foundations on their ownmotion began posting at least some of the critical findings on their Websites.In 2004 The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation made newswhen it published the GPR on what its grantees regarded as its short-comings.22 In the past two years, many other foundations have followedHewlett s lead.In 2007, the president of the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation wrote letters to all its grantees apologizing for the commu-nication ratings it had received, which were discovered for the first timein its GPR.(It is noteworthy that, prior to the invention of the GPR, theRobert Wood Johnson Foundation had been among the first founda-tions to engage an external consultant to conduct a survey on the per-ceptions of its grantees, but, because it had no way of comparing thefindings with those of other foundations, it never discovered the sever-ity of the communications shortcomings found in its very first GPR.)Then, in March 2008, Rip Rapson, president of The Kresge Founda-tion, posted on its Web site its GPR, which revealed very low ratings onseveral dimensions of its critical relationships with grantees.Kresge sopenness about its shortcomings caused quite a stir in foundation andnonprofit circles.One hopes that other foundations will follow the ex-amples set so far by Hewlett, Robert Wood Johnson, and Kresge.As ofearly 2009, twenty-eight funders had posted the results of their GPRs ontheir own Web sites.Prior to 2004, there had been none.In the eight years since its founding, CEP has surveyed more than60,000 grantees of some 242 foundations, including eight of the topten.In addition, over the past several years, the GPR has been used byfoundations in Canada, Israel, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.Thenumber of foundations that have commissioned GPRs is growingsteadily year by year, with most foundations repeating it periodically tosee whether they are making progress in correcting shortcomings.In ad-dition to surveying grantees, CEP also surveys declined applicants to anyfoundations that commission such surveys.As of early 2009, thirty-onefoundations had commissioned such Applicant Perception Reports.In addition to its grantee and applicant perception reports, the CEPhas produced a steady stream of public reports on various aspects of 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 29Introduction to the Paperback Edition 29foundation performance across the sector.Among them are the Com-parative Board Report, which is the only self-assessment tool that in-cludes comparative data gathered through large-scale research onfoundation boards, and the Stakeholder Assessment Report, which pro-vides insights about a foundation s effectiveness by surveying stakehold-ers the foundation seeks to influence as part of its strategy.The Bridgespan Group, mentioned above, is another organizationnow only ten years old that is contributing substantially both to im-proving strategy in foundations and nonprofits and to informing thepublic about what it is learning through its strategic-management prac-tice.23 Bridgespan has found widespread acceptance among both foun-dations and large nonprofits, to the extent that its available time isbooked up more than a year in advance.Increasingly, many foundations,including Gates, Atlantic Philanthropies, The Edna McConnell ClarkFoundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the OmidyarNetwork, are supporting engagements Bridgespan does for theirgrantees.Moreover, Bridgespan s Knowledge Development Program, too,is experiencing rapid growth [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]