It’s no secret that, at CEP, we believe feedback matters. We have argued that external feedback – from grantees, declined applicants, and other stakeholders – is crucial as foundations seek to improve their performance.
But listening to your key partners and constituents isn’t just good advice for foundations. It’s one of those basic concepts that applies to all organizations. That’s why each year we at CEP practice what we preach and ask funders participating in the Grantee Perception Report (GPR) to provide us with their feedback on the experience. As we have done each every year since 2005, last year we once again commissioned LFA Group, an independent third party, to collect confidential feedback from users of CEP’s GPR.
I’d like to offer a few initial reflections on this year’s results, which are available in their entirety on our website.
Overall, the results provided us with positive reinforcement about the power of the GPR to lead to change within foundations. Eighty-three percent of 2010 respondents reported that the GPR resulted in significant change in their organizations – a 15 percent increase over 2009. Among the most frequently cited areas for change are communications with grantees, the provision of nonmonetary assistance, grantmaking processes, and funder strategy (which was cited by 25 percent of 2010 respondents versus fewer than 10 percent of respondents in previous years).
Additionally, 75 percent of first-time subscribers reported that the GPR raised new concerns or challenged previous assumptions about their foundation’s performance. As one respondent noted, “The GPR validated changes in process that led to improvement and identified key areas for future improvement.” We were also gratified to learn that the GPR is seen as a crucial element of continuous funder performance assessment: 92 percent of repeat GPR subscribers indicated that the GPR is a part of their ongoing assessment framework, and 75 percent of first time subscribers reported that they intend to commission the GPR again.
Although funders continue to be very satisfied with the GPR experience and continue to view the GPR as highly valuable relative to its cost, this year’s report also identified several opportunities for improvement. Users’ satisfaction with the clarity of GPR charts, and the report on its own, remain among the lowest comparative ratings. Also, when asked to indicate the barriers to changing in response to GPR results, 19 percent of respondents – the second largest proportion of responses after “lack of time” – indicated “that next steps to improving practices were unclear.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, funders’ experience with the GPR process evolves over time. Repeat subscribers find the GPR process easier with each commissioned GPR and are able to reflect upon their findings more independently compared to first-time users.
CEP is committed to continuous improvement and addressing the areas where users of the GPR, tell us that we can improve. We are grateful to the more than 150 foundations that have provided feedback on the experience over the years and have made many changes in response to the feedback we have received.
Already, as a result of these latest results, we are taking steps to become clearer in our identification and communication of next steps based on key findings. However, I know there is even more we can do to further improve the value of the Grantee Perception Report. We welcome your on-going feedback.
The report is available on CEP’s website.
Travis Manzione is Director – Assessment Tools at CEP.
