Our Personal Drugs: Studying from Suggestions at CEP

It should shock nobody that on the Middle for Efficient Philanthropy (CEP), we’re massive followers of suggestions. For greater than 20 years, we’ve been encouraging funders to hunt confidential suggestions to get a clearer sense of their influence, construct stronger relationships, and enhance their work. We’ve seen that when grantmakers share what they be taught from the suggestions they obtain, it reinforces a dedication to enchancment.

That’s why, earlier this 12 months, we partnered with Tougher+Firm to gather candid, confidential suggestions from our stakeholders — and why we’re sharing these outcomes now. Tougher+Firm surveyed leaders and senior workers at a whole bunch of grantmakers, together with each customers of CEP’s evaluation and advisory providers and people who haven’t engaged with us as shoppers. Along with gathering survey knowledge, Tougher+Firm additionally held interviews with present and former evaluation software customers and advisors to particular person donors. In all, they heard from greater than 300 survey respondents and three dozen interviewees. We’re extremely grateful to everybody who shared their insights with us!

What We Discovered from Your Suggestions

In response to Tougher+Firm’s report, our viewers sees us as trusted and influential on grantmakers’ practices and effectiveness — 93 p.c and 84 p.c, respectively, agree with these descriptions of CEP’s work. We have been additionally thrilled to see that 65 p.c of respondents see our fame as “wonderful” — the very best proportion since we’ve began surveying our viewers (almost all others price our fame as “considerably constructive,” and just one p.c view it as “considerably detrimental”). Our fame and trustworthiness are key to making sure that CEP can positively affect the philanthropic sector by means of our analysis, programming, and assessments.

Our Sources

What’s extra, almost half of respondents instructed Tougher+Firm that they’ve used CEP’s sources to tell conversations with their boards. Most of these surveyed (88 p.c) have lately engaged with the sources CEP affords. Our stakeholders are almost definitely to learn our analysis stories on necessary matters in philanthropy — like this report on MacKenzie Scott’s giving — in addition to use our weblog and web site. Greater than three quarters of those that engaged with these sources rated them as helpful.

Different sources, just like the Giving Achieved Proper podcast and our convention, are described as useful methods to listen to from area leaders. Within the phrases of 1 grantmaker, “(the analysis)… promotes dialogue, it shines a lightweight on a number of the energy contradictions in philanthropic observe.” One other shared, “I’ve more and more turned to CEP as a useful resource as we’re attempting to help observe and coverage shifts inside the basis.”

Our Individuals

Our individuals matter, too: in interviews with Tougher+Firm, our workers have been described as “trusted advisors” and “benevolent nerds who’ve a dedication to rigor” (our colleagues notably cherished the latter descriptor after we introduced the outcomes of Tougher+Firm’s evaluation at an all-staff retreat final summer time). As one grantmaker shared, “Our CEP workers is so responsive and all the time attempting to downside remedy. I requested them one million questions. They’re nice at presenting these sophisticated issues to our group and making it come alive.”

Our Providers

For funders who’ve partnered with us lately on assessments or advisory providers, we see that they’re utilizing their outcomes to higher perceive their work, plan successfully, and inform decision-making. In interviews, funders instructed Tougher+Firm how a lot they worth CEP’s means to benchmark their rankings in opposition to their friends — together with the help our workers gives in making sense of the outcomes.

Current shoppers who’ve engaged with us on an evaluation or advisory venture instructed us that:

• They use their CEP knowledge to drive change: one hundred pc of our latest evaluation and advisory shoppers have used CEP’s engagements to make modifications and inform planning and reflection. These happen in quite a lot of methods: in how funders talk with their companions, how they provide beyond-the-grant help, and the way they give thought to their very own influence, amongst different actions.
• They suppose friends also needs to use CEP’s providers: 99 p.c of latest shoppers would advocate the Grantee Notion Report, Donor Notion Report, Employees Notion Report, or CEP’s advisory providers to a peer group.
• They’re extremely glad: On common, our latest shoppers rated 6.5 on a 1-7 scale for his or her satisfaction with their latest expertise total.

We’re happy with this work and of our partnerships with a whole bunch of grantmakers to assist them make steady enhancements of their work.

What’s Subsequent? Assessing Alternatives for Enchancment

The suggestions we acquired additionally pointed to necessary areas the place we are able to enhance. Every group at CEP is digging into the outcomes, and we’re utilizing this knowledge now to tell CEP’s strategic planning (extra on this in 2025!).

• From grantmakers who work internationally, we heard that a few of our choices — our analysis and assessments, for example — focus too closely on the U.S. philanthropic sector. So, we’re contemplating how we are able to have extra influence in areas outdoors the USA throughout our work.
• We’ll proceed to deal with our core power of information — gathering, analyzing, and sharing necessary insights concerning the philanthropic sector and particular person funders’ personal work. To construct on this, we plan to discover the usage of rising applied sciences like AI to attract even deeper insights from our knowledge and shore up our expertise techniques. As one interviewee instructed Tougher+Firm, “CEP’s superpower is knowledge.”
• We’re creating further sources to assist our companions put together for and customise their CEP assessments and are discovering new methods to higher help them in understanding and performing on the findings we share.

We all the time take our companions’ solutions critically. In reality, we’ve already made modifications in response to different latest suggestions — like providing extra survey rounds annually and chopping report turnaround occasions by a month so we are able to get knowledge to our companions extra shortly.

We deeply worth these insights on our work. Be happy to succeed in out to us to share your concepts on how we are able to enhance.

Lastly, we’re so grateful to the Tougher+Firm group on your partnership and considerate evaluation, and to the a whole bunch of people who generously shared their insights with us.

Mena Boyadzhiev is a director, Evaluation and Advisory Providers at CEP. Discover her on LinkedIn.