In February I had the pleasure of chatting with my friend and colleague Jessica Mindnich on a webinar that focused on the importance of shifting the funder-grantee relationship toward one that encourages continuous knowledge sharing between parties. This is a topic close to my heart as well as Jessica’s, who is the Senior Director of Evaluation, Learning and Impact Stories at Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The truth is that trust-based relationships that prioritize collaboration and transparency are the only way we will be able to move the needle on some of the social issues that philanthropy, and the greater public, are looking to take on.
Trust is at the core of every effective professional relationship. As this research from the American Psychology Association points out, when both parties trust each other they can spend more time finding solutions to shared challenges and less time and energy worrying that their interests aren’t being reflected in decision-making.
Stories have been a central pillar of communities throughout history, and for good reason. Before radio, phones, television and social media, oral storytelling was the primary way of sharing information, news and entertainment. Stories were passed from town to town, family to family, generation to generation, all through oral tradition. The reason we can still enjoy these stories today, before any method of communication and documentation like those channels mentioned previously, is the ability for storytelling to communicate ideas in a way that resonates with the listener.
To effectively perform a mid-year audit of your data requires resources and collaboration across internal teams. The reward? Your organization can proactively identify gaps in your data, understand where data could be driving deeper conversation across teams, and gain confidence that you have the information to achieve your goals by end of year.
Excerpt from “Spotlight on: Equity” by Rachel C. Oatis in How to Make Data Actionable
Too often organizations set up metrics to define success as an organization, but then fall victim to a “set it and forget it” mentality. Though intentions were strong, it is easy to get distracted by the ever growing to do list and last-minute fire drills. The first thing to go when time is precious? The analysis of your activities that allows you to be more strategic looking forward.
What an inspiring #PEAKOnline2021conference. Congratulations to the PEAK board and host committee and especially to Satonya Fair whose leadership was embedded throughout every session and every conversation. Satonya has unleashed the PEAK community who dove deep on topics and brought PEAK’s many new members into the excitement. It was particularly inspiring to learn about the different ways the PEAK members are working to support their grant partners and the way they are championing to approach their work with an equity lens at their foundations.
