posted on: Friday, October 02, 2009

By Niki Jagpal

A few days ago, we received a thoughtful response from Michaelon Wright regarding Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best. He raised some really important issues,

“I read your publication and the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Philanthropy at its Best is delivering sustainable, desirable outcomes, replicatable outcomes. Using methods for measuring an organizations (non-profits) effectiveness in delivering the outcome. Holding the non-profit accountable for how funds are spent, keeping overhead in check and delivering services effectively and efficiently. We as a philanthropic community have been literally throwing our money away on organizations that enable behavior contrary to becomming a responsible, productive member of society and organizations that are overhead intensive and employ staff not sufficiently trained or motivated to deliver results. The problem has not been not enough money thrown at societies ills, it is that there has been little to no accountability for results. Continous funding of an organization for a period of years does not necessarily make that organization more effective. Funding needs to be strictly based on results achieved. Frankly I do not think any of your criteria will improve the ability of Philanthropy to make a difference in the communities they serve. The focus for too long has been on increasing giving and unfortunately not on attaining the desired results.”

I very much appreciated his feedback. Different perspectives and opinions that lead to constructive and informed debates are an important way for us to find common ground and work together to strengthen our sector as a whole. It’s exactly this kind of discussion we all need at this critical time. As Gara LaMarche, president and CEO of the Atlantic Philanthropies and one of our board members said when we released the book:

“What [Criteria] does, in my view, very usefully, is engage in a debate that's been going on in philanthropy for the last several years-that is a debate about philanthropic impact and effectiveness. And that debate, in my view, has for the most part been somewhat sterile and technocratic. ... What it needs to do is have more content, which connects the question of effectiveness to the change you are trying to make in the world. I think [Criteria] makes an enormous contribution to that. ...”

I don’t disagree with Michaelon that grantee organizations ought to be evaluated based on outcomes. But I think it’s equally important that grantmakers be held to the same accountability measures – an emphasis on the outcomes and impact that an institution has on the issues related to its mission and donor intent. As we note in Criteria, just as profit is the bottom line for gauging impact in the private sector, impact is the best measure for our sector’s effectiveness.

When foundations provide core support and multi-year grants, nonprofits are better able to focus on outcomes and results achieved than when they have grants that restrict them to specific programmatic activities. We believe that grantmakers can provide these types of grants and hold their nonprofit grantees responsible, and we provided examples of funders in the book who’ve seen real impact by partnering with grantees in this way.

He’s right that multi-year funding doesn’t guarantee effectiveness. But effectiveness is influenced by a grantees’ ability to respond to the communities it serves. And often, one can’t predetermine what the results of a given intervention will be, nor if other more urgent issues or opportunities to achieve results that benefit our communities might arise. Would you agree that the impact on communities is the best measure of how effective grantee and grantmaking institutions are?

For far too long, most members of our sector have worked in silos, with many notable exceptions. Now’s the time for us to move beyond that approach, to see each others as partners in pursuit of the common good and to truly rethink the grantee-funder relationship.

I’d like to thank Michaelon for sharing his thoughts and invite others to join in this conversation so we can continue this long-overdue discussion about what really matters to make the civic sector the best complement to public and private sectors’ work for the betterment of our society.

PS – I encourage everyone to review this page on Criteria where we address many misperceptions of this book and its intent.

Niki Jagpal is research & policy director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).