What Impact Should Philanthropy Measure in 2021 — And How? (2 of 2)

We have a new president-elect since my last post and the first woman, first African-American, and the first Indian-American as vice president-elect! I will look at some of the election results and social impact implications, especially with two special elections in Georgia that will decide control of the US Senate.

So how can impact funders simultaneously respond to community challenges right now and long-term strategic goals in 2021? Through a combination of equity and strategy — which I often hear folks mention as a (false) dichotomy.

Responding to Community Challenges

In terms of responsive grantmaking, funders have a golden opportunity to create feedback loops between their foundations and grantees and build grantee capacity to do the same with their constituents, referred to as customers. Feedback loops are revealed preference from the customer to the service provider that allows the service provider to quickly adjust course, be responsive, and repeat the cycle.

Constituent to Grantee Feedback Loops

Putting together a semi-annual funder report doesn’t cut it in these chaotic times. In the six month period between April 2020 and September 2020, communities of color had been through disparate health outcomes from COVID, the trauma caused by continued state-sanctioned slayings of African Americans, and the economic fall out from the end of stimulus for an ongoing crisis. Practitioners need to have a constant pulse on the data coming out from their constituents.

Questions a grantee may seek to understand about their constituents:

• If there is a drop in engagement, are there more pressing needs for customers?
• If there is an uptick in customers, is the external situation creating more demand?
• Are the current offerings meeting the acuteness of customer needs?
• What are staff hearing on the ground from customers?
• What is the common thread, and how might it require a pivot — temporary or permanent?

First, funders can provide slack to grantees to focus on customers. Second, they can provide the capacity to observe and act based on their quantitative and qualitative data. It isn’t about endless focus groups. No one has time for that, and stated preferences could differ from reality. It is data-savviness to develop a pulse for what can quickly be amplified, tweaked, or changed. Capacity building can take the form of lean impact training, community organizing, measurement and learning resources, or human-centered design.

Grantee to Foundation Feedback Loops

The lack of an authentic customer-service provider relationship makes foundation-grantee feedback loops more challenging. I want to focus on three loops:

• Grantee-Funder engagement: Center on the grantee — what makes sense for them, in terms of check-ins, to best serve their constituents. Quick email check-ins? Verbal updates that include grantee pain points? What best practices would they cite they either hear about in terms of funder-grantee relationships during this time? (As a former practitioner, we all compare notes on funders;)
• Theory of Change: I avoided broad ‘how is it going?’ conversations to save everyone’s time. Instead, I had a set of the riskiest and most critical assumptions that were also relatively easy to understand if they were happening (or not) based on the grantee-constituent feedback loops.
• Personal: The most important one. At the end of the day, an executive director feels responsible for her team members and those she serves. It can be incredibly lonely — especially during a crisis. It is important to affirm and show up for the people behind the organizations the foundation supports.

2021 Long Term Strategic Goal Setting

Donors and senior philanthropic leaders using pre-2020 goals risk grantee ire for failing to recognize they now operate in a harsh new reality. They also risk the ire of staff (especially younger and PoC team members) for failing to acknowledge that racial equity plays a role in various aspects of a foundation.

Responsive grantmaking and long term goals are inextricably connected. Feedback loops across multiple grantees weave an interesting 30,000-foot perspective.

• For a funder, what might this reveal about external factors in the ecosystem and how it affects a Theory of Change? (And how might that information be shared back with grantees to benefit them?)
• How might this affect the overall goals? For example, the Stupski Postsecondary Success team identified an anomaly in college enrollment. In most recessions, enrollment increases. In this recession, enrollment has decreased. What might this reveal about what is most present for students? Does it require a short term or long term strategy realignment to address long term postsecondary graduation goals?

Finally, just as feedback loops are iterative, so must the goal metrics in a post-COVID world. The absolute value of a goal, while noble, is secondary to the assumptions that back it. Whether on track or not, each new grantee report provides data on whether the goal is still valid. If not, what assumption is now invalid? Or which previously discounted assumption is valid? How might the goal need to be adjusted? What portfolios of grantmaking might this effect in either scaling up or scaling down? What new assumptions need to be validated or invalidated?

If you are a funder, how are you approaching priorities in 2021? If you are a practitioner, what approach do you seek from grantmakers?