How do we find out what our grantees need before we plan anything?
To find out what your grantees need before you plan anything, start with what you already know and then ask them directly. Recent reports, site visit notes, and conversations with program officers often show challenges that come up across several organizations, and those are a reasonable starting point for your questions.
Then ask a small group of grantees what they're working toward, what's getting in the way, and what they'd use. A short conversation with a few organizations, a brief survey, or a listening session with a group of grantees can each work. The right choice depends on how many organizations you fund and how different they are. Ask what form of help would fit their staffing, too, because a topic grantees care about can still go unused if it's offered at a time they can't attend.
Keep in mind that grantees may tell a funder what they think it wants to hear. Making the questions specific, saying how their answers will shape what you offer, and letting someone outside your organization ask can all make an honest answer easier to give. How do I ask grantees for data without overwhelming them? covers keeping requests like this one manageable.
What formats work for grantees with small staffs?
The formats that work for grantees with small staffs are the ones that fit around their programs, so the right choice depends on what they need to learn and how much time they can give. Cohort learning brings several organizations through a shared learning process over a series of sessions, which lets grantees learn from each other as well as from the facilitator. One-day workshops, webinars, and conference sessions suit a focused topic. Hands-on help for a single organization suits a need that is specific to its program or its data, such as setting up a simple way to track participation.
Scheduling matters as much as the format. Avoid the times of year when grantees are busiest, such as their own reporting deadlines or their heaviest program seasons, and ask them when those are instead of guessing. Some combination often works well, such as a cohort for the shared topics and individual help for the questions each organization brings.
Why do some funder-sponsored workshops go unused?
Funder-sponsored workshops can go unused for several reasons, and the first one to check is whether the content matched what grantees needed. A workshop chosen because it seemed generally useful may cover a topic only some grantees were struggling with. It may also be pitched at a level that is too basic for some and too advanced for others.
Other reasons are about design. A session that moves through a slide deck and ends gives grantees information without a chance to apply it to their own work. A session scheduled at a hard time of year, or one that grantees feel they have to attend, may fill seats without anyone using what was taught. If grantees attend because they worry about how it will look if they don't, the funder learns little about whether the help was wanted. Why didn't our last data training change how anyone works? looks more closely at why training doesn't carry over into daily work.
How will we know whether the capacity-building helped?
You'll know whether the capacity-building helped by following up with grantees after it ends and asking what they're doing differently, what they've been able to use, and what they still need. Attendance tells you who came. It doesn't tell you whether anything changed in how an organization runs its programs or uses its information.
Keep the follow-up light, so the effort to find out doesn't become one more requirement. A short check-in a few months later, or a conversation during a regular site visit, may be enough. Be careful about what you conclude, too: if grantees' results improve afterward, other changes in their organizations or communities may have contributed, so describe what grantees report using without claiming the training caused every improvement that followed.
The Grantibly perspective
Angelika's perspective
As former professors and educators, we think about how people learn, how to design learning that engages them, and the real conditions that affect whether they can take part. We don't simply move through a slide deck or present information and leave. We design learning that helps people use what they learn.
We also want the organizations we work with to understand their own data. That means explaining what we're doing and why, and helping teams build stronger evaluation thinking over time. The goal is to help grantees become stronger users of evidence, without having to become evaluators themselves. And no organization should be made to feel that thoughtful help is out of reach because it's small.
