What should we look at before asking grantees for anything new?
Before asking grantees for anything new, look at the information you already have. That includes their proposals, past reports, budgets, and site visit notes, and what your own staff already tracks, such as grant amounts and renewal history. Some of your questions may already be answerable from those records, and others may need only a small addition to a form you already use.
It also helps to ask a few grantees what they already collect for their own purposes, such as attendance, participation records, or the surveys they already run. Information an organization already uses in its own work may be easier for it to share than a new measure built only for you. It also keeps your request connected to how the grantee runs its programs. This is the same principle Grantibly brings to evaluation: review the evidence that exists, then collect only what's missing.
How do we decide which questions are worth asking grantees?
To decide which questions are worth asking grantees, start with what your organization is trying to understand and what it will do with the answer. Then choose the information that would answer it. A question earns its place when someone at your organization will use the answer to make a change, report something your board needs to know, or support grantees better.
A few questions help sort what to keep:
- Who will use this answer, and for what? If no one can say, the question may not be needed.
- Does it need to come from every grantee? Some questions can be answered by talking with a few organizations.
- How often do you need it? Information you review once a year doesn't need to be collected every quarter.
- Is a number the right form? Sometimes a short conversation explains more than a reporting field would.
How do I turn a mountain of grantee reports into insight for my board? covers making what grantees send useful to a board. Whether every grantee should report the same measures is its own decision, covered in Should all our grantees report on the same outcomes?
How do we make a data request useful to grantees too?
A data request becomes useful to grantees when they can see what you learned from it and use some of it in their own work. One way is to share back a summary of what you learned across your grantees, written so that no single organization can be identified. Each grantee can then see how its experience compares with others doing similar work.
Another is to ask for information in a form grantees can also use with their own boards and other funders, so they aren't preparing a version that only fits your system. And when what grantees told you shapes a change in your own grantmaking, such as a simpler report or a new kind of support, tell them. Seeing that their information led to something makes a reporting requirement part of a shared effort to learn.
Why might grantees not tell us a request is too much?
Grantees may not tell you a request is too much because your organization decides whether they're funded, and that power dynamic makes it hard for them to push back. A grantee that is worried about its renewal may find the time somehow, even when the request is taking staff away from its programs.
You can make an honest answer easier to give. Ask grantees directly how long reporting takes them and which parts they find useful, and offer a way to answer that doesn't carry their name, or have someone outside your organization ask. Separate what is required from what is optional, and make sure the optional parts can be skipped without consequence. Then act on what you hear, and tell grantees what you changed. Where the line falls between supporting grantees and monitoring them is covered in What's the difference between grantee support and compliance monitoring?
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
Evaluation should support the work, not overwhelm the people doing it, and we think the same is true of what a funder asks its grantees to report. More data isn't necessarily better data. We don't collect information simply because it might be interesting, and every additional measure creates work for the people asked to provide it.
As sociologists, we also pay attention to who is included, who is missing, and who holds decision-making power. Data doesn't make decisions; people do. Our job is to help organizations turn information into understanding and action, and for a funder, that includes making sure grantees can see what came of what they shared.
