Central to the Foundation’s grantmaking strategy is the ability to accurately measure and track performance–both by our grantees and the Foundation. Tracking performance serves two purposes. First, it enables the Foundation to better evaluate whether its investments are successful in achieving their stated goals. Second, collecting and analyzing performance data provides both the Foundation and grantees organizations with invaluable information to adjust and improve its programs and operations to better achieve its goals.

Detailed reports on the performance of our grantees and the Foundation can be found under Results.

Tracking Grantee Performance

As part of the terms of the Foundation’s investment, each grantee organization declares (based on its existing business plan) what it will hold itself accountable for during the terms of the grant. Each portfolio manager is responsible for monitoring and tracking the performance of organizations that it manages the relationship with.

The Foundation assesses performance both along quantitative and qualitative measures, in four key areas:

Youth Served: this includes details about an organization’s ultimate capacity to serve youth each year, as well as participants’ demographic background, such as socio-economic status.

Revenue and Sustainability: the Foundation evaluates an organization’s current financial picture, as well as the organization’s ability to sustain operations at a larger scale. These indicators include tracking whether an organization is able to diversify sources of revenue, as well as grow and build reserves.

Outcomes: the Foundation continually tracks whether youth served by various programs are truly benefiting from the services being delivered.

Leadership: The Foundation tracks the performance of the organization’s senior leadership and board, including their ability to become stronger, more effective leaders over time.

Foundation Performance

The Foundation has set two overall goals for its current grantmaking strategy for which it holds itself accountable:

• Increasing the number of low-income young people participating in effective programs with improved life prospects
• Stronger grantee organizations that are sustainable at larger scale (this includes capacity to attract greater amounts of money from other funders over time)

To determine whether the Foundation is successfully executing its grantmaking strategy, the Foundation has developed special indicators to evaluate:

• The Foundation’s Grantee Portfolio Performance
• Delivery of Extra-Financial Supports, ranging from strategy development and consultation, talent development initiatives, communications assistance, board development, and evaluation assistance.

The Foundation uses a combination of quantitative analysis of grantee performance, external evaluations and internal assessments to measure its own performance every year.