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EDUCATION: Developing Board Capacity
Board members of a $9 million family foundation sought help
from Philanthropy Advisors in developing their ability to
use site visits to evaluate grant proposals and choose among
different proposals, all of which might look wonderful on
paper. The board members had a special interest in education
programs. What, they asked, should they be looking for when
they visit education programs and how could they get answers
to their questions without “interrogating” applicants?
Preparing for Site Visits
Philanthropy Advisors staff provided board members with several
text resources laying out “standard” questions
grantmakers should want to know about their grantees. Through
discussions, staff helped the board members figure out how
to adapt these standard questions to education programs, how
to obtain answers to these questions prior to site visits,
if they were not provided in the application, and how to use
this information to develop questions that probed more deeply
into the applicants’ mission, methods, and outcomes.
Staff led the board members through an exercise to identify
the criteria they believed important to assess the applicants,
including class size, classroom or school ambiance, pedagogical
method or style, frequency of intervention, upkeep of facilities,
and school philosophy. Because some of these criteria cannot
be measured quantitatively, Philanthropy Advisors staff led
several discussions aimed at clarifying the qualitative indices
that board members could use to assess education programs.
Conducting Site Visits
Prior to each site visit, Philanthropy Advisors staff assisted
the board members to develop questions they wanted answered
during the site visit. Staff prepared a check-off list for
each visit and shared it with board members, reviewing with
them determinants of the qualitative criteria (such as instructional
techniques and quality, physical upkeep) they would assess
through observation. During the first site visits, staff led
the discussions and questioning, but, as board capacity developed,
increasingly ceded questioning to board members, intervening
only to highlight or return focus to particular issues.
Using Site Visits Effectively
After each site visit, staff “debriefed” with
the board members, calling attention not only to the answers
to questions, but also reflecting on how each question was
answered (observation, explicit Q&A, documentation) and
how each answer fit into an overall evaluation of the match
between the Foundation and the applicant. Over time, staff
helped board members develop the skills and confidence to
use site visits to choose among several programs which the
Foundation’s finite grant budget should support.
Moving Forward
Today, as the board assumes greater responsibility for the
grant program, the Education Committee of the Foundation is
preparing to set up and undertake its own site visits, conferring
with Philanthropy Advisors only as back-up. Both board members
and Philanthropy Advisors staff see their work together on
site visits as fulfilling the board’s goal of enabling
family members efficiently and effectively to assume more
oversight responsibility.
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