The TPA grantmaking portfolio
Strategy implementation
- The portfolio’s evolution
- Thematic and spatial breadth of grantmaking
- The strategy’s contribution to the field
The portfolio’s evolution
A shift towards supporting more regional and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
In 2016, the Hewlett Foundation transparency, participation and accountability (TPA) staff organised the portfolio of TPA grantees along four major themes and each programme officer developed a sub-strategy that specified grantmaking criteria, plans, and learning priorities through 2021.
In the evaluation, TPA staff members noted an evolution of their portfolio following the creation of the four new sub-strategies in 2016, shifting from providing support to large international NGOs (INGOs) based in Washington DC, New York and London, to direct grantmaking to a greater number of national NGOs.
This shift was made possible because the national NGOs in the priority countries became more diversified in their revenue sources, mitigating the risk of financial dependence, and increasing their ability to invest in institutional capacity and long-term planning.
The adoption of new technologies and improved connectivity also allowed for easier communication between TPA programme staff and grantees based in East and West Africa.
Despite this perception among the TPA team, an analysis of the actual grantmaking (see figure) indicates that it is the number of regional (and not national) grants that have increased over time.
External factors influenced funding patterns
Hewlett TPA staff highlighted the shifts in global leadership that affected the governance trends initiated through the Open Governance Partnership that was announced at the 2011 UN General Assembly. Instead, democratic standards were eroded through reduced support for civil society, the criminalisation of activism and the diminishing of civic space.
The TPA team decided to not pursue an explicit grantmaking strategy that addresses civic space but chose instead to support their grantees’ efforts to expand their constituencies of support and diversify their staff to build broader societal support when under threat (TPA staff, ‘TPA Strategy Summary’, 2019).
Through commissioned research, engagement with INGOs, co-funders, field visits, stakeholder convenings, the TPA staff developed frameworks or approaches to grantmaking in East and West Africa and Mexico. Programme officers were given some leeway and autonomy when considering new countries, however, they had to make a compelling case.
Although the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA grantmaking appears to have gradually shifted over time towards (new) national and regional grantees it retained its general focus by supporting (existing) international grantees over longer periods. Overall, exiting from a grant takes time and was not undertaken lightly:
There was very little room to make new grants because of historical grantmaking. It takes time to stop funding. Hewlett Foundation’s norm is not to just cut off an organization. This takes time before they were completely removed from the portfolio. (Hewlett TPA staff)
For example, if an assessment of a grantee’s priorities revealed high strategic alignment but poor or weak organisational structure, consideration was given to support them organisation via the Organizational Effectiveness grant (rather than necessarily exiting).
Several US-based INGOs received sustained support and were re-grantees in the TPA field. A grantmaking analysis for 2019 revealed that the bulk of TPA grants were renewals (indeed, respondents praised the TPA grantmaking strategies for offering good opportunities for renewal).
The 2019 grantmaking analysis also showed a measure of growth for project-level support and a decrease in general support to organisations among the sub-strategies of TPA. It also showed some growth in the support of national NGOs (foreign — not visible here) across the sub-strategies.
The sectors that received attention and support depended on the existence of known partners and models in the sector (e.g. Oxfam America, NRGI, PWYP, IBP). There was also increased support for national NGOs and that was determined, according to a team member, in part by a political environment that appeared to support citizen participation in that country. There was general agreement among TPA staff that TPA needed to support grantees located within countries to enable marginalised groups to participate in governance channels. This sentiment is shared by grantees and other stakeholders located in Africa (verifiers/co-funders) engaged as part of the evaluation. How best this can be done will manifest in ongoing strategies for grantmaking by TPA staff.
Thematic and spatial breadth of grantmaking
National, regional, international focus
Between 2014 and 2020, the Hewlett Foundation TPA team disbursed more than 370 general operating support, project support and Organizational Effectiveness grants to 107 grantees working at an international, regional and national, in 10 countries.
Most of this funding went to ‘international’ grantees (see Figure), located primarily around the North Atlantic. In 2020, TPA provided funding more evenly to international, national and regional grantees (see Figure).
The 2018 evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA strategy found that although most grantees aim to work at multiple levels — that is, local, national, regional and/or international — doing this is challenging and therefore some grantees focus only on one level (see section on inhibiters of progress).
A number of grantees in the current evaluation gave examples of working at only one level — e.g. nationally or internationally — however others strategically planned to work at multiple levels. For example, Afrobarometer does stakeholder mapping at country, regional and global level and targets their products at them depending on their need and perceived need. Grantees in Africa expressed the wish for more visible presence of TPA staff on the continent.
A multi-level and multi-theme approach
Working at multiple levels — international, regional, national, local — is supported by different models primarily systems thinking and the socioecological model; for some Hewlett Foundation staff there is an understanding that, to effect change, we need to understand both the whole system (globally) and what is being done at the local, national, international and regional levels.
Seeing a broader and whole picture enables you to engage more effectively and understand what opportunities at global level you can harness at a national level despite global norms. (Hewlett TPA staff)
There is an assumption that changes at one level of the system filter down or aggregate up to influence these other spaces — for example, that regional-level norm changes will influence norm changes at a country level, or vice versa. (This is not always the case: some countries do not adopt international norms and standards or policies for country-level implementation, for example.)
The international norms guide but the national countries have the power to implement over their citizens. (Grantee)
Globalisation has also radically influenced and changed the framework within which governments formulate their policies, as limitations have been imposed on the freedom of governments to develop and apply macroeconomic policies. For the Hewlett Foundation to influence and support national governments in developing, implementing and monitoring macroeconomic policy, it also needs to have influence at a regional or international level. For some thematic areas, such as tax, it is therefore essential that there is investment on multiple levels.
Globalisation has brought to the fore how global links to national and subnational, and we want to be able to connect all three. Take for example the issue of tax, domestic level mobilisation to get more revenue but if you don’t work on tax architecture internationally, you work with a leaking bucket. You need to link national and international architecture. (Hewlett TPA staff member)
Similarly, there is a general belief that to effect real change within specific contexts, work has to be done across multiple themes. And many have obvious overlaps — for example, tax and budget transparency. Many of the organisations that the foundation supports already work across numerous themes. The IBP, for instance, works across various fiscal governance issues (e.g. taxation, public revenue, or public debt).
The merits of a multi-level and theme approach
Working at multiple levels and across multiple themes exposes the Hewlett Foundation and its grantees to opportunities for engagement and learning and aligns with the Hewlett Foundation’s values of collaboration and learning and its beliefs about how change happens at the national level.
It means that the foundation can be adaptable within a politically charged field, shifting focus between themes as political opportunities emerge or tensions arise, and can help the foundation to identify success stories that have the potential for cross-context implementation or scaling.
The Hewlett Foundation encourages and facilitates collaboration across fields, geographies and spatial levels, and national- and subnational-level organisations report having benefited from exposure to international and regional actors via networking platforms, research publications, data access, etc. (see section on support given to grantees). These benefits include gaining additional knowledge in specialised fields or skills (such as advocacy) and driving norm change and good practice simultaneously across multiple countries.
Regional and international collaborations also provide opportunities to learn about other TPA work, which might be replicated or adapted in a national or subnational setting. Hewlett Foundation should make greater efforts in deepening multilevel partnerships to form working relationships that could help national or subnational partners better contextualise such examples or practices.
My critique would be that there needs to be more connections made on how to use or making best use of regional/international work to national, but especially sub-national contexts. Connections here refer to better joint working between the different levels, more resources to national/subnational levels, etc. (Grantee)
The drawbacks of a multi-level and theme approach
However, there are also drawbacks to a multi-theme, multi-level approach. For example, although a key benefit of a multi-level approach may be the opportunities for learning, there is some suggestion that learnings are often context specific and therefore what has been successful or useful in one country may not be relevant to or successful in another.
Moreover, given the Hewlett Foundation’s finite resources, the capacity of staff to provide expertise support through beyond the grant dollar support is limited. There is less funding and TPA staff support to any one field or region (as finite resources are spread across several). This limits the depth of engagement and knowledge in specific fields or regions, and the ability of staff to develop a deep understanding of complex country-level policies and processes. This also emerged as a challenge for the Hewlett Foundation’s when it comes to fostering learning about governance, in that it is more challenging to extract meaningful learnings from different projects when TPA’s work in any one sector is limited.
Another key drawback to a multi-theme approach is that it may encourage donor-focused programme planning. Many organisations have a number of programmes that work across multiple themes and are not always linked — something that generally comes about as a result of a focus on what the donor wants or where the funding is coming from, rather than on the interconnectedness of the themes. This could have a detrimental effect on the sustainability of grantee programmes; when funders exit, there’s not necessarily the strategic impetus to take this work forward. However, our findings in this area are inconclusive. Providing core support to organisations rather than programme-specific funding would be one way to mitigate this risk.
Some of the grantee organisations (African CSOs) — there is a proliferation of programmes and themes as they think that is where they can get funding — I understand why they are doing it, as it is about the funding behaviour… If working across themes they should really see how they connect and how work with others, as it can be difficult to sustain. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)
Evaluating this breadth of focus from a resource perspective, might result in a recommendation for greater focus in both depth and breadth of the work; however, when evaluating this from a learning perspective, it is evident that this wide focus area has resulted in an immense amount of learning for grantees, and ultimately the generation of an entire field for learning. This conclusion was supported and validated by grantees during the grantee sense-making session, where it was suggested that the Hewlett Foundation has been an important actor in building the TPA field. Experimentation in and working across multiple contexts and multiple themes, is a valid approach given the need for continuous learning in this formative field.
There is a field that exists around transparency, participation and accountability that didn’t exist when Hewlett started their work. (Grantee)
The strategy’s contribution to the field
We asked the TPA team’s co-funders and other funders whether (and where) the foundation’s TPA strategy has made a unique contribution to the field, complemented other funder investments or overcrowded them. Eight out of 10 co-funders or other funders answered these questions.
Most of the responses focused broadly on the Hewlett Foundation’s niche as a funder.
One co-funder commented that the Hewlett Foundation provided generous support and made available significant sized grants. It also tended to stick around longer than other funders. Apparently, other funders have moved on from the ‘transparency’ theme.
What is interesting is that there’s been a lot of acknowledgement of how transparency is inefficient in the way it is implemented. The outcomes and successes are very hard to see and I don’t know that there are many US funders still focusing on these issues… But in all honesty, the ‘transparency’ theme is not a crowded space, it is in fact a very small space. (Co-funder)
The general view was that the TPA grantmaking contributed to the building of knowledge of the field and co-funders noted various contributions or complementarities to the foundation’s work. Only one respondent, in relation to one specific area (service delivery around universal health coverage), suggested that the Hewlett Foundation may be crowding out other funders.
Yes, the TPA is involved in creating knowledge and provide sophisticated answers to questions such as what is the value of disaggregated data on different constituents of the population? They’re [Hewlett Foundation] funding work in this. On knowledge generation in general is that the knowledge never happens in a vacuum and it resides in how it is produced and who produces it and who shares ownership of it. (Co-funder)
Respondents credited the foundation for its field-building initiatives and credited the Foundation for the establishment and continued existence of key organisations in the TPA field.
The successes can also be attributed to the relationships of the TPA staff and grantees. The relationships were key and allowed for dynamic engagement betA shift towards supporting more regional and national NGOs
In 2016, the Hewlett Foundation TPA staff organised the portfolio of TPA grantees along four major themes and each programme officer developed a sub-strategy that specified grantmaking criteria, plans, and learning priorities through 2021.
In the evaluation, TPA staff members noted an evolution of their portfolio following the creation of the four new sub-strategies in 2016, shifting from providing support to large INGOs based in Washington DC, New York and London, to direct grantmaking to a greater number of national NGOs.
This shift was made possible because the national NGOs in the priority countries became more diversified in their revenue sources, mitigating the risk of financial dependence, and increasing their ability to invest in institutional capacity and long-term planning.
The adoption of new technologies and improved connectivity also allowed for easier communication between TPA programme staff and grantees based in East and West Africa.
Despite this perception among the TPA team, an analysis of the actual grantmaking (see Figure) indicates that it is the number of regional (and not national) grants that have increased over time.
External factors influenced funding patterns
Hewlett TPA staff highlighted the shifts in global leadership that affected the governance trends initiated through the Open Governance Partnership that was announced at the 2011 UN General Assembly. Instead, democratic standards were eroded through reduced support for civil society, the criminalisation of activism and the diminishing of civic space.
The TPA team decided to not pursue an explicit grantmaking strategy that addresses civic space but chose instead to support their grantees’ efforts to expand their constituencies of support and diversify their staff to build broader societal support when under threat (TPA staff, ‘TPA Strategy Summary’, 2019).
Through commissioned research, engagement with INGOs, co-funders, field visits, stakeholder convenings, the TPA staff developed frameworks or approaches to grantmaking in East and West Africa and Mexico. Programme officers were given some leeway and autonomy when considering new countries, however, they had to make a compelling case.
Although the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA grantmaking appears to have gradually shifted over time towards (new) national and regional grantees it retained its general focus by supporting (existing) international grantees over longer periods. Overall, exiting from a grant takes time and was not undertaken lightly:
There was very little room to make new grants because of historical grantmaking. It takes time to stop funding. Hewlett Foundation’s norm is not to just cut off an organization. This takes time before they were completely removed from the portfolio. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)
For example, if an assessment of a grantee’s priorities revealed high strategic alignment but poor or weak organisational structure, consideration was given to support them organisation via the Organizational Effectiveness grant (rather than necessarily exiting).
Several US-based INGOs received sustained support and were re-grantees in the TPA field. A grantmaking analysis f0r 2019 revealed that the bulk of TPA grants were renewals (indeed, respondents praised the TPA grantmaking strategies for offering good opportunities for renewal).
The 2019 grantmaking analysis also showed a measure of growth for project-level support and a decrease in general support to organisations among the sub-strategies of TPA. It also showed some growth in the support of national NGOs (foreign — not visible here) across the sub-strategies.
The sectors that received attention and support depended on the existence of known partners and models in the sector (e.g. Oxfam America, NRGI, PWYP, IBP). There was also increased support for national NGOs and that was determined, according to a team member, in part by a political environment that appeared to support citizen participation in that country. There was general agreement among TPA staff that TPA needed to support grantees located within countries to enable marginalised groups to participate in governance channels. This sentiment is shared by grantees and other stakeholders located in Africa (verifiers/co-funders) engaged as part of the evaluation. How best this can be done will manifest in ongoing strategies for grantmaking by TPA staff.
Thematic and spatial breadth of grantmaking
National, regional, international focus
Between 2014 and 2020, the Hewlett Foundation TPA team disbursed more than 370 general operating support, project support and Organizational Effectiveness grants to 107 grantees working at an international, regional and national, in 10 countries.
Most of this funding went to ‘international’ grantees (see Figure), located primarily around the North Atlantic. In 2020, TPA provided funding more evenly to international, national and regional grantees (see Figure).
The 2018 evaluation of the Hewlett Foundation’s TPA strategy found that although most grantees aim to work at multiple levels — that is, local, national, regional and/or international — doing this is challenging and therefore some grantees focus only on one level (see section on inhibiters of progress).
A number of grantees in the current evaluation gave examples of working at only one level — e.g. nationally or internationally — however others strategically planned to work at multiple levels. For example, Afrobarometer does stakeholder mapping at country, regional and global level and targets their products at them depending on their need and perceived need. Grantees in Africa expressed the wish for more visible presence of TPA staff on the continent.
A multi-level and multi-theme approach
Working at multiple levels — international, regional, national, local — is supported by different models primarily systems thinking and the socioecological model; for some Hewlett Foundation staff there is an understanding that, to effect change, we need to understand both the whole system (globally) and what is being done at the local, national, international and regional levels.
Seeing a broader and whole picture enables you to engage more effectively and understand what opportunities at global level you can harness at a national level despite global norms. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)
There is an assumption that changes at one level of the system filter down or aggregate up to influence these other spaces — for example, that regional-level norm changes will influence norm changes at a country level, or vice versa. (This is not always the case: some countries do not adopt international norms and standards or policies for country-level implementation, for example.)
The international norms guide but the national countries have the power to implement over their citizens. (Grantee)
Globalisation has also radically influenced and changed the framework within which governments formulate their policies, as limitations have been imposed on the freedom of governments to develop and apply macroeconomic policies. For the Hewlett Foundation to influence and support national governments in developing, implementing and monitoring macroeconomic policy, it also needs to have influence at a regional or international level. For some thematic areas, such as tax, it is therefore essential that there is investment on multiple levels.
Globalisation has brought to the fore how global links to national and subnational, and we want to be able to connect all three. Take for example the issue of tax, domestic level mobilisation to get more revenue but if you don’t work on tax architecture internationally, you work with a leaking bucket. You need to link national and international architecture. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)
Similarly, there is a general belief that to effect real change within specific contexts, work has to be done across multiple themes. And many have obvious overlaps — for example, tax and budget transparency. Many of the organisations that the foundation supports already work across numerous themes. The IBP, for instance, works across various fiscal governance issues (e.g. taxation, public revenue, or public debt).
The merits of a multi-level and theme approach
Working at multiple levels and across multiple themes exposes the Hewlett Foundation and its grantees to opportunities for engagement and learning and aligns with the Hewlett Foundation’s values of collaboration and learning and its beliefs about how change happens at the national level.
It means that the foundation can be adaptable within a politically charged field, shifting focus between themes as political opportunities emerge or tensions arise, and can help the foundation to identify success stories that have the potential for cross-context implementation or scaling.
The Hewlett Foundation encourages and facilitates collaboration across fields, geographies and spatial levels, and national- and subnational-level organisations report having benefited from exposure to international and regional actors via networking platforms, research publications, data access, etc. (see section on support given to grantees). These benefits include gaining additional knowledge in specialised fields or skills (such as advocacy) and driving norm change and good practice simultaneously across multiple countries.
Regional and international collaborations also provide opportunities to learn about other TPA work, which might be replicated or adapted in a national or subnational setting. Hewlett Foundation should make greater efforts in deepening multilevel partnerships to form working relationships that could help national or subnational partners better contextualise such examples or practices.
My critique would be that there needs to be more connections made on how to use or making best use of regional/international work to national, but especially sub-national contexts. Connections here refer to better joint working between the different levels, more resources to national/subnational levels, etc. (Grantee)
The drawbacks of a multi-level and theme approach
However, there are also drawbacks to a multi-theme, multi-level approach. For example, although a key benefit of a multi-level approach may be the opportunities for learning, there is some suggestion that learnings are often context specific and therefore what has been successful or useful in one country may not be relevant to or successful in another.
Moreover, given the Hewlett Foundation’s finite resources, the capacity of staff to provide expertise support through beyond the grant dollar support is limited. There is less funding and TPA staff support to any one field or region (as finite resources are spread across several). This limits the depth of engagement and knowledge in specific fields or regions, and the ability of staff to develop a deep understanding of complex country-level policies and processes. This also emerged as a challenge for the Hewlett Foundation’s when it comes to fostering learning about governance, in that it is more challenging to extract meaningful learnings from different projects when TPA’s work in any one sector is limited.
Another key drawback to a multi-theme approach is that it may encourage donor-focused programme planning. Many organisations have a number of programmes that work across multiple themes and are not always linked — something that generally comes about as a result of a focus on what the donor wants or where the funding is coming from, rather than on the interconnectedness of the themes. This could have a detrimental effect on the sustainability of grantee programmes; when funders exit, there’s not necessarily the strategic impetus to take this work forward. However, our findings in this area are inconclusive. Providing core support to organisations rather than programme-specific funding would be one way to mitigate this risk.
Some of the grantee organisations (African CSOs) — there is a proliferation of programmes and themes as they think that is where they can get funding — I understand why they are doing it, as it is about the funding behaviour… If working across themes they should really see how they connect and how work with others, as it can be difficult to sustain. (Hewlett Foundation staff member)
Evaluating this breadth of focus from a resource perspective, might result in a recommendation for greater focus in both depth and breadth of the work; however, when evaluating this from a learning perspective, it is evident that this wide focus area has resulted in an immense amount of learning for grantees, and ultimately the generation of an entire field for learning. This conclusion was supported and validated by grantees during the grantee sense-making session, where it was suggested that the Hewlett Foundation has been an important actor in building the TPA field. Experimentation in and working across multiple contexts and multiple themes, is a valid approach given the need for continuous learning in this formative field.
There is a field that exists around transparency, participation and accountability that didn’t exist when Hewlett started their work. (Grantee)
The strategy’s contribution to the field
We asked the TPA team’s co-funders and other funders whether (and where) the foundation’s TPA strategy has made a unique contribution to the field, complemented other funder investments or overcrowded them. Eight out of 10 co-funders or other funders answered these questions.
Most of the responses focused broadly on the Hewlett Foundation’s niche as a funder.
One co-funder commented that the Hewlett Foundation provided generous support and made available significant sized grants. It also tended to stick around longer than other funders. Apparently, other funders have moved on from the ‘transparency’ theme.
What is interesting is that there’s been a lot of acknowledgement of how transparency is inefficient in the way it is implemented. The outcomes and successes are very hard to see and I don’t know that there are many US funders still focusing on these issues… But in all honesty, the ‘transparency’ theme is not a crowded space, it is in fact a very small space. (Co-funder)
The general view was that the TPA grantmaking contributed to the building of knowledge of the field and co-funders noted various contributions or complementarities to the foundation’s work. Only one respondent, in relation to one specific area (service delivery around universal health coverage), suggested that the Hewlett Foundation may be crowding out other funders.
Yes, the TPA is involved in creating knowledge and provide sophisticated answers to questions such as what is the value of disaggregated data on different constituents of the population? They’re (Hewlett Foundation) funding work in this. On knowledge generation in general is that the knowledge never happens in a vacuum and it resides in how it is produced and who produces it and who shares ownership of it. (Co-funder)
Respondents credited the foundation for its field-building initiatives and credited the Foundation for the establishment and continued existence of key organisations in the TPA field.
The successes can also be attributed to the relationships of the TPA staff and grantees. The relationships were key and allowed for dynamic engagement between the parties. Co-funders are aware of relationship building capabilities of the TPA staff.
From my knowledge, and working experience, one of the sort of unique selling points is the quality of their staff who can really analyse the situation and ask helpful questions. (Co-funder)
Two of the co-funders found that the TPA team is unique in their strong focus on gender and nexus with participation and one co-funder highlighted that the TPA team is pursuing civic engagement more aggressively than other funders and wanting to understand why it is not working.ties of the TPA staff.
From my knowledge, and working experience, one of the sort of unique selling points is the quality of their staff who can really analyse the situation and ask helpful questions. (Co-funder)
Two of the co-funders found that the TPA team is unique in their strong focus on gender and nexus with participation and one co-funder highlighted that the TPA team is pursuing civic engagement more aggressively than other funders and wanting to understand why it is not working.
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