Listening & Feedback:
A Funder Action Menu
3.
Make capacity-building grants to improve nonprofit feedback practice
One of Shared Insight’s core goals is to provide widespread access to tools and resources that increase the capacity among organizations to systematically listen to and respond to their clients. Through our signature feedback initiative, Listen4Good (L4G), funders can support grantee efforts —and explore how listening can inform their own grantmaking work. We invite funders to learn more about joining L4G’s community of philanthropy and social sector actors committed to advancing feedback. Here’s another way to offer capacity-building support:
Put aside a pool of funds that nonprofits can access as they make changes in response to client feedback
When NEPA Funders Collaborative organized in 2019, it set the goal of raising $75,000 from its members to support five nonprofits to participate in Listen4Good’s co-funded grant program. When $90,000 was collected, the group set aside the additional money for mini-grants to help pay for changes the nonprofits might implement in response to client feedback.
We’d love to feature your foundation’s feedback and listening practices in this menu! Please use this form to share your story.
Explore Funder Action Menu
1. Talk about feedback in the application and reporting processes
2. Convene nonprofits and funders to listen and learn together
3. Make capacity-building grants to improve nonprofit feedback practice
4. Use listening and feedback to inform grantmaking
5. Use listening and feedback to inform strategy development
6. Use listening and feedback to inform measurement, learning, and evaluation
7. Employ a variety of tactics to listen directly to people and communities
8. Incorporate listening into other areas of foundation operations