Good Grantmaking Materials and Tools
On Friday I launched the first prototype of Good Grantmaking. I’ve been thinking over the last year about what is needed in grantmaking, philanthropy and Foundation practice, and this has manifested in a few blog posts — most read were “10 things on my mind as a Funder” and “Skills and capabilities for effective grantmaking.”
I was then in conversations about writing a book on Pioneering Philanthropy — particularly as I wanted to turn the books that have (rightly) critiqued philanthropy over the last year into a an opportunity to change its practice. A few books have already emerged in response to this, most recently Darren Walker’s — and mine might still happen, though it will be a collaborative effort. In the meantime, I felt what I could mostly usefully do right now, and what I didn’t see happening anywhere else, is move to the how. Not the how by using case studies (although I know the sector loves a case study), but a how in terms of useful tools and materials that can guide the approaches we need.
So far the website shares tools (cards and canvases) about —
- Service design — What happens when Foundations recognise that they deliver services? How many Foundations have mapped out the experience of one of their ‘users’ accessing their services? I worked with Lou Downe to adapt their 15 Good Services principles (now a book!) into the context of grantmaking. There are two different canvases to use, and a set of 15 card decks, with a variety of questions that are there to prompt discussion and design of grantmaking services.
- Technology policy — How and what grantmakers fund when it comes to technology, digital and data needs to align with their mission and values as an organisation. Taking a position on technology and its dynamics will be increasingly important for anyone working in philanthropy, as we understand more about how technology is affecting society.
- Good technology, digital & data grantmaking — This is work that I’ve been developing in my role at The National Lottery Community Fund. I was tasked with trying to build the confidence and understanding of staff across the organisation so they’re able to ask better questions and make better decisions when it comes to technology, digital and data. There are six different card decks and a canvas to use — which are not meant to be used in their entirety in one go — but instead to be drawn on for different contexts, whether as part of existing due diligence processes or as conversation prompts with applicants when developing their funding proposals.
- Designing ways to fund ecosystems — Anyone that knows me or has been reading my blogs over the last few years knows that I am pretty obsessed with how you design and fund more collective approaches to social change. In fact one of the main reasons that I wanted to move into the field of philanthropy is because I believe that Foundations have a particularly unique role to play in encouraging more collective approaches (coordination, cooperation, collaboration) that they’re currently underperforming in! I think that is in part because this work needs designing. There are 5 different canvases that help set the foundations for this kind of work.
Over the next month we’ll also be adding the following —
- Roles — this will include practical tools and prompts to help Foundations think about the kind of different roles they may want to hire, and how to go about doing so. There will be a particular focus on what it means to find, hire and work with people that could be described as network weavers, context switchers, connectors, field-builders, pattern spotters — as the value of people who have an affinity for this kind of work is increasingly being recognised.
- Collective Intelligence Design — drawing on Nesta’s Collective Intelligence Design playbook, we have been thinking how to translate it into a grantmaking and Foundation context.
- Participatory Grantmaking — there’s a growing interest in this within philanthropy, and it w(hopefully) marks the start of a shifting of power. Grant Craft and the Ford Foundation wrote about it, and my colleague Hannah Paterson is doing her Winston Churchill Fellowship focussed on it. When I started to read more about it I felt there was a lot of overlap and similarities to co-design, co-production and participatory design, so I’ve started to translate all the participatory design tools and materials I’ve been using for the last 16 years into a grantmaking and Foundation context.
- Power, privilege and diversity — part of Participatory Grantmaking is about ceding power, but there are many other aspects of grantmaking and the design of philanthropy and Foundations that need to address head on questions of decolonisation, indigenous rights, knowledge and wisdom, ways to heal and be regenerative, ways to centre racial justice and so forth. We’ve been developing some tools and materials to help with this — although this is deep and long-term work, that needs to be lead by people with lived experience.
- Narrative’s for ecosystems and complexity — If we start to design, connect and fund ecosystems more effectively then we also need more effective ways of doing narrative work. Case studies, individual stories and the “voice of lived experience” are important but don’t do enough to represent the more complex world we’re now looking to change. There is real skill in drawing together different stories and voices across a system that is intentionally being evolved, changed or transformed — institutional narratives, cultural narratives, as well as individual narratives. We’ve been developing tools and materials that help connect micro and macro narratives, and that weave together different narrative threads to create “systemic narratives” and “narratives of big change.”
- Horizon scanning and sensemaking — I’ve written before about the unique role Foundations can play in horizon scanning, given their position in the field, the data they have to draw on, and ability to take a helicopter view. We’ve been creating some tools and materials to support Foundations and grantmakers on how to do this — so they become useful sensemakers too.
Look out for all of these in January 2020 when they’ll appear on the website. In the meantime I would love to hear what else people would like to see included?
