New report finds communication key in donor and grantee relationship

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, California, has announced the results of its new Grantee Perception Report, which was prepared for the foundation by the Center for Effective Philanthropy in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

For the report, the foundation’s third grantee perception report since 2003, CEP received five hundred and seventy completed survey responses from the foundation’s grantees and used them to compare Hewlett to other large foundations, the foundation world overall, and to survey responses provided by Hewlett grantees in 2006. According to the findings, grantees gave the foundation high marks for achieving its goals but wished it did more to communicate those goals and its strategies for achieving them to grant recipients.

In the latest survey, grantees rated Hewlett higher than average for large private foundations on several important measures such as impact on grantee organizations, influence on public policy, and understanding of grantees’ goals and strategies. When it came to communicating its goals and strategies, however, the foundation scored below the median rating.

Hewlett president Paul Brest noted that a 20 percent change in the grantees’ primary contacts at the foundation in the six months preceding the survey may have played a role in the rating, but he acknowledged that those surveyed also indicated that written materials received from the foundation were not always consistent with program officers’ messages, and that those messages sometimes varied depending on who they spoke with.

“The relationship between funder and grant recipient is an inherently unequal one, and these anonymous surveys offer an invaluable tool for us to learn and improve,” said Brest, who added that the foundation would incorporate what it had learned in its decision making. “This works to the advantage not just of funders and grantees but of those who ultimately benefit from the grants.”

“Recipients of Hewlett Grants Rate the Foundation.” William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Press Release 11/20/09.


Source: Philanthropy News Digest