Are we good strategic partners to our grantees? Do we help our grantees become more effective? Sometimes, it can be difficult for us to get answers to these kinds of questions. When you give away money, the people you give it to are not always eager to tell you things you might not want to hear. But we need honest feedback, because that is the only way we'll get better at our job.
That's why the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation engaged the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a widely respected nonprofit that helps foundations improve their work, to help us find out what our grantees think about us. Since 2004, the CEP has produced three Grantee Perception Reports for us.
In this letter, I'll explain what these reports are, summarize what we've heard from our grantees, and, most importantly, outline how we're responding.
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About the GPR
The CEP survey asks grantees multiple-choice questions, in which they give the foundation a numerical rating from 1 to 7, and open-ended questions, in which they can write out their responses. Their answers are kept anonymous.
CEP averages the numerical ratings to create scores that can be compared to those from the other foundations that have commissioned surveys so far. They also summarize the written responses to the open-ended questions. (The three surveys done so far have generated more than 1,500 written responses.) The response rates for our three surveys ranged from 69 percent to 77 percent.
Go to CEP's Web site to read much more about the process for creating grantee perception reports and see a list of the other foundations that have participated. |
What is a Grantee Perception Report?
CEP has surveyed our grantees from three grantmaking areas: Education (in the fall of 2004), Global Health (spring 2006), and Pacific Northwest (fall 2006). In each survey, CEP asked grantees a number of questions about what it’s like to work with us. (Their answers were kept anonymous—we don’t know which grantees gave what feedback.)
CEP has done studies like this for almost 200 foundations. We've posted a brief explanation of how the scores are compiled; you can also visit CEP’s Web site to read much more about the process and see a list of the other foundations that have participated.
What we've heard
Although grantees rated the three programs quite differently on some questions, we heard some common themes about what we do well, and areas where we need to improve.
What we do well
Our grantees rated us highly (compared to other foundations) in two areas:
- Impact. The CEP asked grantees about the impact we have in a variety of areas, including on public policy, on local organizations, and on the advancement of knowledge in the field. Each grantmaking program scored well in at least one of these areas.
- Dollar return per hour spent on administrative work. Our grantees say the grants they get from us are worth the time they spend developing proposals, monitoring and evaluating progress, preparing reports, etc.
Where we need to improve
All three programs rated poorly in grantees' perceptions in two areas:
- Overall satisfaction and interactions. This includes our responsiveness to grantees, our fairness in working with them, and their comfort in approaching us with problems or concerns.
- Clear communication of goals and strategies. Grantees tell us they don't understand clearly enough what we're trying to accomplish or what role they play in reaching these goals.
What we're doing about it
We hear what our grantees are telling us, and we're committed to improving. We know we can—and should—do better.
We are taking a few steps to improve our communications with grantees directly:
- Web site redesign. This year, we'll launch the first phase of a redesign of our Web site (the one you're viewing now). Improving our communications with grantees is one of the top goals of the redesign. Please visit www.gatesfoundation.org/redesign to learn more about the project, and to share your suggestions for how we can communicate more effectively through our site.
- Publishing our strategies and goals. We've developed internal documents that spell out very clearly, for each of our grantmaking areas, the problem we're trying to solve, our vision of success, and the role the foundation wants to play in solving those problems. This year, we will create public versions of these documents and publish them on our Web site for grantees and for the general public.
- Making it easier to share confidential feedback with us. I hope that our grantees feel comfortable going directly to their program officers with concerns. If they don’t, we will give grantees the option to share feedback confidentially over the phone or on the Web.
We are also working to improve the way we build relationships with our grantees. For instance, we have:
- Engaged our entire staff in detailed discussions of the reports so we know what we need to work on.
- Invited outside experts to help run four extended staff meetings to encourage U.S. Program staff to work together on building stronger relationships with their grantees.
- Created a series of workshops led by a panel of program officers who excel at working with grantees.
These steps are a good beginning. And we will keep looking for ways to improve. In particular:
- We will commission more Grantee Perception Reports. We plan to work with CEP again in late 2008 or early 2009.
- We understand that what gets measured gets done. Some of our program areas have set specific goals regarding grantee relationships for 2008, and we are developing ways to measure our progress over the year.
- We will develop a peer coaching program so our program officers can help each other build more effective relationships with grantees.
I'd like to close by thanking the grantees who participated in the perception reports we've done so far. And I’d like to invite any grantees who have ideas about how we can improve—whether you've taken a survey already or not—to send me your thoughts at granteefeedback@gatesfoundation.org.
Patty Stonesifer