President's Message:
Legacy Evaluation at the Northwest Health Foundation
Letter from Jim Hill, Board Chair and Thomas Aschenbrener, President
As our second decade approached, the board and staff of the Northwest Health Foundation felt a responsibility to learn from our first ten years of grantmaking to determine what sort of an impact we are achieving, the quality of our relationships with our community partners, and how we can improve our practices moving forward. Obtaining honest feedback can be a challenge for a foundation, as people are not always eager to share less-than-positive opinions or experiences. So, as we prepared to launch a new era for the Foundation, we sought an independent assessment of what we’re doing well and what we can be doing better.
In this spirit, in 2007 the Foundation contracted with two organizations to engage our grantees and other community partners, and provide a comprehensive analysis of how well we are achieving our mission. First, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) surveyed our current grantees using their Grantee Perception Report (GPR) instrument. The GPR is designed to capture data on topics such as how clearly we are communicating with our grantees, how well we are supporting their mission, how well we are advancing the fields in which we operate, and what sort of value we provide to our grantees over and above grant funding. The GPR is standardized, in order to provide foundations with an opportunity to compare themselves with their peers and across time. To date, CEP has produced Grantee Perception Reports for nearly 200 foundations.
Second, the Center for Community Health and Evaluation (CCHE) conducted a legacy evaluation, interviewing both past grantees and key informants in the fields of public health, health care, and education. CCHE staff spent months conducting focus groups, interviews, surveys, and document reviews in order to glean the key lessons from our first decade. The results of this assessment – titled “Legacy Illuminated” – are available here.
Together, these two reports tell a rich story of the Foundation’s engagement in the communities we serve. To a remarkable degree, the major themes in both reports reinforce each other. This occurred despite the fact that they differed substantially in scope (the GPR surveyed grantees in all of our programs; “Legacy Illuminated” looked only at our Community Grants program) and duration (the GPR surveyed only current grantees, while “Legacy Illuminated” spoke with people who had contact with the Foundation throughout our history).
We would like to thank all of our community partners who took the time to contribute their thoughts to one or both of these reports (respondents to both CEP and CCHE are confidential – we do not know who responded, and who did not). We have listened to your input, and we are using it to guide us as we move forward. This letter summarizes the key lessons we’ve learned, and how we are responding.
Here’s what we learned from the Grantee Perception Report:
What we do well
- Grantees said that they highly valued everything that NWHF provides over and above grant dollars, such as technical assistance, workshops, and introductions to other funding sources.
- Grantees told CEP that they valued the Foundation’s involvement in the policy realm, and in advancing the fields in which they work.
- Grantees scored the Foundation highly for the clarity, quality, and integrity of interactions with staff.
Where we need to improve
- Grantees encouraged the Foundation to gain a deeper understanding of their local communities’ needs and values.
- Grantees surveyed by CEP encouraged the Foundation to work harder to understand their organizations’ goals and strategies.
- Grantees reported that they had to invest more time during the application and reporting process, relative to the size of our grant awards, than with other funders in CEP’s cohort.
One of the most striking results of the GPR was the significant difference in how grantees rated the Foundation based on the grant program from which they received funding. Almost without exception, our nursing program scored near the top of the range. The nursing program was the Foundation’s first strategic initiative, one in which we articulated a long-term commitment toward specific goals. Clearly, grantees appreciated this clarity of mission and focus. This finding is reinforced by the “Legacy Illuminated” report, which lists as its first recommendation “Develop a long-term vision with strategic focus areas.”
Download the Grantee Perception Report summary
How we are responding
The findings of the Grantee Perception Report and “Legacy Illuminated” have given us a tremendous opportunity to examine our strategies, practices and assumptions, and become more responsive to the communities we serve. Here are some ways we plan to redesign our operations in light of these findings:
Strategic Focus: Our board recently approved our new strategic plan, which organizes our resources and energy behind four priority areas. Within each area – Access to Health Care, Nursing, Public Health and Health Philanthropy – we have articulated how we plan to work with our community partners to achieve the goal. The Foundation is committed to these goals for the long-term. We will seek opportunities to share our priorities and strategies in forums throughout our grantmaking region.
Outreach to Specific Communities: We need to do a better job of engaging rural communities, and some communities of color. Staff are developing plans to create opportunities for these discussions. We welcome your thoughts on how we can better learn about your priorities, needs, and assets.
Non-Monetary Assistance: Grantees clearly value the technical assistance, workshops, and other forms of non-monetary assistance that the Foundation provides. Both reports indicate that grantees would like us to provide more of it. One idea proposed was to help frame issues in a way that provides a more advantageous environment for our partners to achieve their goals. Another was to become more involved in the policy arena. You will see the Foundation become more active in both of these areas as we move forward, such as our Community Health Priorities project.
These are just a few examples of how we are using the results of these reports to become a more effective organization. The Foundation is working to develop and implement specific recommendations, from the number of site visits we conduct to how we interact with a grantee after the grant period ends. At each step, we would value your honest assessment of how we are doing.
We look forward to continuing to be the community’s partner in health.
Jim Hill and Thomas D. Aschenbrener
(posted April 23, 2008)
Past messages: