Nonprofits are facing increasing expectations from their funders to demonstrate progress and effectiveness. Most foundations strive to understand their own impact in large part through the successes of their grants and grantees, and many within the philanthropic community are pushing to obtain evidence of effectiveness from the nonprofit organizations they support.
At the same time, a number of foundations are also working to simplify reporting and evaluation processes. Project Streamline, for example, is an effort aimed at “reducing the burden on nonprofits” and freeing up “more time and money for mission-based activities.” Recommendations to trim processes include funders “right-sizing” reporting and evaluation requirements, enabling web reporting, creating standardized reporting processes, and making other operational improvements.
But how are grantees experiencing foundation required reporting and evaluation processes? How helpful do they find them? What actually matters most to grantees? To shed light on these questions, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) collected survey responses from more than 24,000 grantees about their views of 130 foundations.