When placing collectively year-end lists, it’s arduous to keep away from a slight feeling of déjà vu; in any case, you’re not solely trying again on the yr that was, however repeating an annual train of reflection.
But in wrapping up 2024, I’m unsure if my colleagues and I on the Evaluation and Advisory Providers staff would say that is true. To make certain, the essence of our work has remained the identical — but it surely’s developed and flourished in necessary and inspiring methods. (Later on this publish, I’ll share a collection of examples of funders performing on suggestions they acquired in partnership with CEP. It’s these tales, recent yearly, that encourage us as we stay up for what’s subsequent.)
This previous yr, we expanded our attain, main 125 assessments on behalf of funders and gathering important suggestions from grantees, declined candidates, donors, and workers; fielded customized surveys on subjects starting from board demographics to capability constructing; and steered studying efforts for membership networks, company grantmakers, and funder collaboratives. On high of this, by providing further survey rounds in 2024, we had been in a position to present our purchasers with much more alternatives all year long to gather well timed, accessible suggestions, and to show round what we be taught much more shortly.
Past these modifications to our work, although, what feels totally different this previous yr is how persistently forward-looking our purchasers had been, regardless of the challenges that materialized and amidst the uncertainties funders and nonprofits confronted. It maybe wouldn’t have been stunning for grantmakers to pause, retrench even, a minimum of for some time, to get their bearings and chart out subsequent steps.
What we noticed as an alternative in 2024 was the alternative, with so many funders that CEP has the privilege of working with striving to double down on their strongest methods to ship and prolong their affect, all of the whereas reinforcing their dedication, not solely in making a distinction within the fields and communities in biggest want of their assist, however in turning a lens on themselves. Our purchasers grasped extra acutely than ever that the insights of their key companions, particularly grantees, had been probably the most forthright and efficient strategy to unlocking their full potential, regardless of how demanding these assessments could be.
Our purchasers, each those we’ve highlighted beneath and people whose public findings are hyperlinked in a full record that may be discovered right here, have demonstrated that motion issues, which essentially started with curiosity and an intuition for transparency when asking about enter (together with every little thing from constructive criticism to new concepts and strategies and — sure — additionally validation from their grantees). We right here at CEP are particularly proud to have helped assist this work in 2024, which removed from inspiring déjà vu, has felt uplifting as we stay up for 2025.
That is all to say: thanks. We admire the entire funders that CEP has partnered with, together with those that’ve shared their grantee suggestions outcomes publicly and mirrored on what they’ve realized. The next record isn’t meant to be complete, however we hope these examples illuminate somewhat of what we earnestly consider at CEP: that studying via suggestions is all the time recent, novel, and — fortunately — a trigger for optimism.
Barr Basis
“The headlines from this yr’s GPR had been [encouraging] … We had been happy to listen to that our grantees felt and valued the modifications we had made in response to the issues and strategies they shared with us in 2017. And extra importantly, the GPR tells us that our grantees are experiencing Barr as a funder who reveals up in ways in which advance and improve their work.”
Democracy Fund
“Our grantees acknowledge our subject experience and admire our efforts to advance data within the subject — however we are able to do higher. Grantees gave us stable scores in our understanding of the sphere and see us as rising thought leaders, reflecting the truth that a lot of our workers comes from the practitioner group. Nonetheless, they thought we are able to do extra to know grantee organizations themselves, pointing to a necessity to higher assist our field-expert workers of their transition to grantmaking roles.”
The James Irvine Basis
“For the primary time we requested customized questions on Irvine’s racial fairness efforts. Whereas grantees consider we’re dedicated to racial fairness, they need to know extra about how we’re addressing racial fairness throughout all features of the Basis and what our efforts imply for our work and theirs. Transferring ahead, we are going to proceed to speak publicly about progress on our racial fairness commitments in our technique, grantmaking, and analysis — and share, the place related, the implications of those efforts for grantees.”
Kate B. Reynolds Belief
“The entire suggestions we acquired was immensely priceless, and we are going to use it to form the way in which we spend money on grantees and assist the day-to-day work. We are going to proceed to convey our core values of listening to grantees and studying from the specialists on the bottom as we give attention to equitable entry to well being care, equitable well being outcomes, thriving residents, and thriving communities.”
Maine Well being Entry Basis
“We had been additionally blissful to see that our efforts to make utility and grant reporting processes much less burdensome have translated into grantees reporting spending much less time general assembly grant necessities than in previous surveys. The method additionally recognized alternatives for persevering with enchancment. We’re creating our plans to behave on suggestions for guaranteeing grant candidates have clear and exact data to assist candidates’ understanding of their chance of success for a given funding alternative.”
Missouri Basis for Well being
“Notably, a chorus amongst companions was a need to higher perceive MFH’s broad strategic targets and long-term imaginative and prescient, in addition to how companions’ work suits into them… [As a result, we] are dedicated to offering companions with a deeper understanding of the Basis’s broad imaginative and prescient and accompanying methods, in addition to how particular person companions’ work relates. We’ve not too long ago redesigned the construction and content material of the MFH web site to be extra accessible and clear, and can search alternatives to make clear and produce to life MFH’s broad strategic targets and commitments utilizing the web site and different channels of communication.“
Porticus (Netherlands)
“Our intentional actions, initiated after our reflections on the GPR 2020 outcomes — particularly our give attention to significant participation and on additional constructing our trust-based relationships — have contributed to constructive 2024 outcomes. This reveals that the insights we acquire from these surveys are invaluable for decision-making and for shaping how we and our companions work collectively.”
Ralph C. Wilson Basis
“Candidates shared that they wished program workers to be extra responsive, accessible, and truthful to candidates. One applicant acknowledged, ‘I consider it could save them time in the long term in the event that they had been to provide us a couple of minutes to share what could be a great match underneath their focus space. This appears like a troublesome basis to construct relationships with and discover out why your tasks might or might not match.’ Grantees echoed this sentiment by saying that when they’re able to speak with workers they’re very useful. Nonetheless, ‘…there have been many instances when it appeared responses had gone chilly and we needed to provoke connections repeatedly.’”
Skyline Basis
“The CEP survey outcomes confirmed that Skyline’s grantee companions need to extra clearly perceive our targets, methods, and grantmaking necessities. For many of the basis’s historical past, Skyline has maintained a really low profile. Knowledgeable by our core values of justice and humility, we’ve targeted on shifting cash. We took an preliminary step towards exterior communications final yr by launching our first-ever web site, and we’ve seen how that small step has helped grantee companions and prospects perceive how our values and priorities align with theirs.”
The Winnipeg Basis (Canada)
“Organizations shared the necessity for multi-year funding alternatives, and bigger, unrestricted grants… The Winnipeg Basis piloted the multi-year grant program in 2017 and 2018; nevertheless, 2020 was not the appropriate time to supply longer-term assist to fewer organizations when so many teams wanted to handle quick wants. Now that our group has begun to stabilize post-pandemic, we’re dedicated to bringing again multi-year funding in fall 2024.”
Joseph Lee is a senior supervisor on the Evaluation and Advisory Providers staff at CEP. Discover him on LinkedIn.
Editor’s Be aware: CEP publishes a variety of views. The views expressed listed below are these of the authors, not essentially these of CEP.
