TACTICAL PHILANTHROPY
More Foundations Need to Seek
Feedback from Grantees
By Sean Stannard-Stockton
FOUNDATIONS and nonprofits are constantly looking for the right tools to measure
success.
One of the most effective
sources of information might
come from the people who rely
on an organization, suggests
The Ultimate Question 2.0, by
the veteran management consultant Fred Reichheld with
Rob Markey. This new book follows up on Mr. Reichheld’s previous one in which he demonstrates that asking one simple
question of a business’s customers can often reveal more about
the company’s performance
than more traditional financial
or product analyses.
The question: “How likely is
it that you would recommend
Company X to a friend or col-
league?”
Since charities and founda-
tions are created to serve the
public at large, and most ben-
eficiaries don’t pay directly for
services, this approach to mea-
suring results cannot be applied
directly in the world of philan-
thropy.
But a number of organizations
are working on ways to get feedback from the public and from
beneficiaries. In so doing they
may find the same connection
Mr. Reichheld did.
The Center for Effective Philanthropy is one of the pioneers
of this work.
For more than a decade, it has
conducted studies of grant recip-
ients and others to help founda-
is also doing important
work to gather and an-
alyze the views of peo-
ple a charity tries to
serve.
say, regardless of its
utility.”
He recognizes that
nonprofits tend not to
tell foundations when
they’re doing a bad job,
A similar dynamic exists be-
tween many beneficiaries and
nonprofits, because a person in
need of social services rarely is
in a position to turn down sub-
par assistance.
Few nonprofits ask such clients what they could do to better serve them. But organizations could make more vigorous
efforts to encourage such feedback.
It is with this dynamic in
mind that I’m reminded of a
plea by Frederick Hess, a scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute, for foundations to
avoid reacting defensively when
criticized and in fact to seek out
and encourage criticism.
“Foundations need to make it
conscious policy to welcome—
and even encourage—criticism,”
Mr. Hess wrote in Philanthropy,
MARK LI TZLER
THE CHRONICLE OF PHILAN THROP Y
“There’s nothing to starting a family foundation, just an
interest in keeping money from charities.”
the magazine published by the
Philanthropy Roundtable, an
association that serves donors.
Given that even tart-tongued
observers will be unusually reluctant to share their thoughts,
foundations need to make it extravagantly clear that they will
not blacklist critics—or look
kindly upon those who do. Only
this kind of scrutiny will flag
blind spots, wishful thinking,
or ineffective spending.
Whether the foundation per-
sonnel agree with such assess-
ments, engaging with them is
essential to forestalling the
plagues of hubris and group-
think that are so much a part of
human nature.”
It is asking a lot of any orga-
nization to seek out criticism.
But it is only by asking for con-
structive feedback that nonprof-
its and foundations can expect
to improve the quality of their
contributions to society.
Sean Stannard-Stockton, a
Chronicle columnist, is a wealth
adviser who specializes in helping families with their philanthropy. He is also author of the
Tactical Philanthropy blog.
A Fund’s Support of Eugenics ‘Science’ Holds Hard Lessons
Foundations must
reach out to many
kinds of people
to assess
their work.
tions figure out how to reinforce
strengths and fix weaknesses.
Its flagship “grantee perception
reports” have now been commissioned by more than 190 foundations.
The center has also been
working on a “beneficiary perception report.” Its pilot program is called YouthTruth and
gathers the feedback of high-school students who attend
schools supported by the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.
In a report published this
month, the Center for Effective
Philanthropy notes that few
foundations collect information from beneficiaries. The fact
that the intended recipients of
foundation programs are rarely
asked for feedback highlights
how much room there is in philanthropy to deploy Ultimate
Question-type measurements.
Keystone, a London charity,
evidence confirming the links
between the eugenics movement
and our first major philanthro-
pies, including the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, the
Carnegie Corporation, and the
Rockefeller Foundation.
toplasm that caused sloth,
drunkenness, unworthiness,
and other social ills from 1904
until 1939. Frederick Osborn
championed similar causes at
the Carnegie Corporation for 26
years.
Philanthropy today still aspires to move beyond treating
mere symptoms of problems by
getting to their causes.
As long as that is so, it should
be haunted and humbled by the
recollection that this once drove
it to treat American citizens as
nothing more than bundles of
genetic deficiencies, demanding
elimination by science rather
than “coddling” by charity.
The deep shame of eugenics
should not be ignored by phi-
lanthropy but rather embraced
as its own “original sin.”
Just as does its Judeo-Chris-
tian prototype, it should forever
remind us that, for all our excel-
lent intentions and formidable
powers, we are not imperious
gods able to eradicate our flaws
once and for all by some grand,
scientific intervention.
We are, rather, imperfect human beings called to compassion and charitable care for other imperfect human beings.
But how do the Carnegie entities today view their involvement in eugenics?
Asked if the Carnegie Corpo-
ration might wish to comment
on its support of the Bowman
Gray medical-genetics program,
a spokesman noted that those
grants were “an aberration” and
a departure from better known,
manifestly beneficial programs
reflecting “the dignity of each
individual in a democracy.”
But treating eugenics as a
mere aberration mistakenly
suggests that it has nothing
to teach contemporary founda-
tions about the dignity-denying
potential of an extreme “root
causes” approach.
William Schambra is director
of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the
Hudson Institute and a regular
contributor to these pages.
