As the calendar turns to September, we inevitably think more about learning, whether we are long past formal education or still engaged with it. We are prompted to it at this time of year by media commentary on school access, new tech for learning and the challenges of keeping student attention in the digital age. Much of this is about individual learning. But what about organizational learning?
In the philanthropy world, learning doesn’t have a September start. It should be year-round. In my experience, most learning activity by foundation people (board and staff) remains informal. This isn’t a criticism. It’s true that and important that learning happens in various ways beyond the formal – personal conversations with colleagues, conversations with community partners, attendance at conferences, collective discussions with experts of one kind or another. However, in a philanthropic organization, formal learning is often associated or directly coupled with evaluation. And that is mostly done at arms-length. Surveys are prepared, reports are requested, data is supplied to funders by the organizations receiving their funds. All this input serves the purposes of accountability and governance. It is necessary. But it may or may not translate into learning. It answers the question: what did we do? But not always the question: what can we do better?
The British consulting and research organization IVAR puts learning at the heart of its work with foundations, suggesting that learning is a driving force for foundation strategy and practice. As IVAR notes, “learning is not an add-on – it’s integral and essential… Making good grants and investing in learning are not alternatives. They go hand in hand.”
If this is true, why do so many foundations seem reluctant to be more structured in their approach to learning? Part of the reason may be that they don’t see it as a practice that needs to be formalized in the same way as grants management, budgeting and board governance. Part of it may have to do with not having enough resources (people or time). Part of it may simply be that it is difficult to do.
But foundation board members and staff are uniquely primed to want to explore the question: how can we do better? Not just how can we become more efficient…but how can we become more effective, have more impact on the social issues and problems that we care about? It may be difficult at the beginning. Learning does take time. But it can be consciously shaped. It’s a conversation that can be built into every board agenda, and every staff discussion. It’s not something to do only once a year but as often as the opportunity can be created. IVAR has helpfully supplied tips for foundations on building a learning agenda.
Learning can also become a crucial element in building relationships between funders and community partners. This ties into the increasing interest among foundations in engaging in “trust-based granting”. Many of the changes in funding practice that funders have made since 2020 – streamlining applications, reducing reporting requirements, covering more operating costs, extending grants over more than one year – have been designed to help organizations supported by foundations to do their work more effectively. If they are more effective, foundations are more effective. Learning as a practice can help both funders and their partners in this regard. But how do you engage in trust-based learning, without adding burden on both sides?
British philanthropic funders have some advice to offer us. IVAR has been running a funder roundtable on evaluation for some time. Members of this group and the broader group of funders working with IVAR have been particularly interested in practicing what they call open and trusting grantmaking. Since learning is a key strategic practice, several of these funders are collectively discussing what it would look like to practice trust-based learning. In a 2023 report, IVAR researchers defined trust-based learning as “a learning process that sees charities and funders as equal partners in building collective wisdom for more effective and equitable social change.”
Sharing insights in a blog post in January this year, IVAR researcher Houda Davis suggested four actions that funders could take to bring trust-based learning to life:
The IVAR funders have many helpful comments and tips to share based on their experience. They don’t minimize the obstacles. But they suggest that thinking hard and being willing to commit to equitable learning practices does offer real value by adding to the capacity and effectiveness of the organizations on the ground as well as the funders themselves. “Rather than learning practices that serve the needs of individual funders – often at the expense (literally) of grant recipients – trust-based learning aims to reposition charities and funders as partners who learn alongside each other in service of achieving shared goals.”
With this encouragement, September can be a return to learning for philanthropy too.