Sometimes data reveals unexpected opportunities. Like a simplified grant-making portfolio that amplifies impact.

Problem:

A major corporate foundation was receiving substantial pressure from executive leadership within the company to demonstrate its impact. The foundation needed to revisit its entire giving portfolio of 50 youth service organizations—totaling $20 million in grant-making annually—but didn’t have a clear idea in which areas it was having the biggest impact. Enter Mission Measurement.

Solution:

We began by facilitating a stakeholder engagement process to understand how key stakeholders defined success for the foundation’s grant-making work. Our team also reviewed market and academic research to identify a core set of youth development outcomes that the funder could truly “own” and invest in.

Mission Measurement staff then worked closely with the grant-making team to consider gaps in their investments and identify where they were clearly having the most impact.

Results:

We co-developed a prioritized set of outcomes and metrics that would not only reflect the impact of grant-making going forward, but would also serve as a decision-making tool for the grant-making team.

Through this process, the funder came to realize that they were trying to accomplish too many outcomes—and as a result were not creating as much impact as they could with a more targeted portfolio. As a result, the foundation revised its strategy to focus on a single geographic region and population.