Fund for Shared Insight: Accomplishments and Lessons Learned from the First Three Years

Shared Insight Accomplishments Lessons Learned from the First Three Years

In 2014, seven funders came together as Fund for Shared Insight, seeking to improve the effectiveness of philanthropy by funding and supporting feedback practice, feedback research, and foundation listening and sharing. By 2017, Shared Insight had grown to 46 funding partners, providing $15.9 million in grants to 70 grantees. In this report, ORS Impact, Shared Insight’s evaluation and learning partner, takes an unflinching look at the work to date, with a high-level view of accomplishments and key lessons that can be taken forward into the next three years of work.

Key findings

Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected over three years, the report offers key takeaways, including:

  • How Shared Insight’s unique contribution turned up the heat on a growing feedback field
  • Increasing evidence that feedback practice can be transformative, with the potential to upend traditional power dynamics and become a tool to advance inclusion and equity
  • Important remaining challenges, including how to balance efforts across a portfolio approach going forward, and how to promote a stronger vision of practice change among foundations

Ultimately, the report tells us that Shared Insight’s original investments have yielded positive outcomes and progress. With an expanded base of funders, an updated theory of change, and lessons gained from the collaborative’s first three-year phase, the report concludes that the next three years have potential to yield even greater results.

Read the full report to learn more about Shared Insight’s work, accomplishments, and challenges.

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Fund for Shared Insight: Accomplishments & lessons learned from the first three years by ORS Impact is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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