Developing and Implementing Grant Metrics

Findings From a Pilot With Surdna’s Inclusive Economies Grantees

At the Surdna Foundation, we believe that learning with and in service of our grantees is essential to driving impact. In this spirit, we conducted a pilot with our Inclusive Economies grantees to co-create how we set and track progress toward our collective goals.

This report shares the pilot’s findings and gives an inside look into how we worked with our grantee partners to:

  • Determine the grant outcome metrics most commonly selected by grantee partners
  • Test Surdna’s assumptions about how metrics relate to its strategy interventions vs. how the foundation’s grantee partners think about them
  • Share knowledge with our grantee partners about the types of data their colleagues are collecting and the targets they are setting
  • Gather feedback on Surdna’s data collection process

We hope this report will be useful to all who might benefit from our experience:

• For funders—to inform efforts to create and track metrics with your grantees, including establishing a glossary of shared definitions and collecting data in your grants management system

• For grantee partners—to understand the collective targets set by grantees who participated in the pilot

• For students of philanthropy—to get a behind-the-scenes look at the strategies and nuts and bolts tactics to measure progress

Read the Report

Report Cover