Grantee and Applicant Survey Provides Blueprint for Continued Improvement Earlier this year, we asked the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to conduct a survey of our grantees and applicants to gauge their perceptions of our philanthropy work. Their anonymous responses were benchmarked against both a diverse dataset of 300 funders and a custom cohort of 12 education-focused funders. CEP presented their report of key findings and recommendations to us in July. Overall were very pleased with the results, which show strong improvement in several areas since our last survey in 2014. The feedback we received on the strength of grantees relationship with Great Lakes was particularly gratifying. On that measure, we rated in the top 20 percent of funders in the entire CEP dataset and near the top of the custom cohort. Weve worked hard to be true partners to our grantees rather than just compliance officers, and survey responses confirm that were making progress on that front. At the same time, the survey also shines a light on areas in which we can do a lot better. Some of the feedback we received suggests a need to get to know our grantees and their day-to-day challenges better. Our grantmaking team is in the process of developing a detailed plan for continued improvement in response to the survey. As that process unfolds over the coming months, we wanted to share with you Great Lakes CEO Richard Georges preliminary reflections on the candid feedback we received from grantees and applicants. |