Accelerating Impact with Grantee Reporting: People, Process, Tools | Session 1: Grantee Reporting
Series Description
Since 2020, many funders have embraced new ways of interacting with their nonprofit partners and grappled with how to shift the grantmaking power imbalance. Reporting is no exception. Funders have started to deeply consider grantee partners' work when reporting on their efforts in relationship with the grant dollars they receive. This includes considering the purpose of reporting, what information we need, and what mechanisms exist and could be adapted, in order to achieve the needs of a grantmaking organization while centering grantees.
In this series of two sessions, you'll hear from foundation staff who have piloted new reporting methods, incorporated practices aimed at deep equity, transparency, and accessibility. They will share key lessons from engaging in this kind of systems change. You will also have the opportunity to workshop case studies to explore reporting processes and their origins and impacts. This series of programs will resource you to assess your reporting process and make changes to it to achieve impact while addressing the burden of reporting on grantee partners.
Session Description
The grant report can hold space for a feedback loop critical to creating and living a learning culture. As such, we will explore the purpose of reporting, what information we need, and how to use that information to support learning and change within our organizations and grantmaking strategies. Through a panel conversation, in this first session of this series, funders who have redefined and redesigned their reporting practices will share their lessons and experiences.
From program staff to grants management, from evaluation teams to board members, reporting processes are an integral part of understanding what change and impact foundation dollars have. We, therefore, will explore how rethinking reporting processes touches almost, if not every, aspect of a foundation’s grantmaking practice, covering the inequities embedded in philanthropy and our practices and reflecting on the cultural “source codes” that influence the field.
Audience
- Foundation staff that are responsible for leading or supporting organizational change.
- From learning and evaluation team members to senior leadership, program and grants staff, and intermediaries who work closely with nonprofit groups, there is reason for all foundation staff to engage with the session content.
- We encourage teams at organizations to attend this program together so that you can more effectively move a change agenda in your organization.
Join us to:
- Interrogate the origins and purpose of grantee reporting
- Reimagine grantee reporting processes that get you the information you need while centering nonprofits
- Consider equity and power dynamics as you reimagine grantee reporting processes
Speakers
Alicia Harris
Alicia Harris
Alicia Harris is the Senior Program Officer of Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice at The Grove Foundation. Previously, she implemented sexual violence prevention education at the University of California, Berkeley. In addition, she has worked with several Bay Area organizations focusing on LGBTQ health, reproductive justice, and sexuality education. Alicia is a Funders for Reproductive Equity Board of Directors Member and recently served as the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for ACCESS Women’s Health Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to ending institutional and practical barriers to reproductive health. Alicia earned a BA from Vassar College and an MPH from UC Berkeley. Alicia is also the Senior Manager of the Reproductive Justice Program at the Grove Action Fund.
Tuquan Harrison
Tuquan Harrison
Tuquan Harrison identifies as a Black nonbinary person from Los Angeles, California. Tuquan has an extensive background in direct grantmaking, strategy development and implementation, and equity, with expertise in racial equity practice and culture change in the public sector, with an emphasis on capacity building. Working at the intersection of the nonprofit, the public, and the philanthropic sector, Tuquan’s career has focused on operationalizing equitable practice change in grantmaking, most notably, their work supporting “San Francisco Black Community Reinvestment Fund,” a 120-million-dollar funding initiative aimed at improving the quality of life for Black San Franciscans. Tuquan currently serves as a Program Officer on the Better Careers Initiative, co-leading the Community-Accountable Workforce strategy that aims to invest in the ecosystem of direct-service organizations working to repair the public workforce system, ensuring equitable access for all low-wage workers and learners in California.
Jenny Herrera
Jenny Herrera
Jenny Herrera (she/her) is the Knowledge & Grants Manager at the Libra Foundation. She oversees Libra’s grant cycles and engineers grantmaking processes rooted in trust, while centering grantees in each stage of the process. To this role, Jenny brings both work and lived experiences in Libra’s program areas and their intersections. Jenny has previously worked in co-designing research studies and program evaluations. She is a first-generation college student that majored in Philosophy and Sociology from the University of California, Davis.
Rachel Kimber
Rachel Kimber
Rachel M. Kimber, MPA, is a speaker, technology futurist, and nonprofit executive. She is committed to human-centered, data-informed, and technology-supported grantmaking and is passionate about advancing emergent nonprofit practices that support equity, access, inclusion, and technological innovation. Rachel has served on local nonprofit boards and within international nonprofits, both small family foundations and global grantmaking NGOs, and has volunteered in various capacities with PEAK Grantmaking, Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG), Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, and Philanthropy New York. Rachel’s work has tackled conservation, global health, social justice, performing arts, and humanities grantmaking. No matter where she’s working or what cause she supports, she looks for creative ways to involve more stakeholders in the grantmaking process and ensure that good ideas stick.
Blanch Vance
Blanch Vance
Blanch Vance is an experienced strategist, systems thinker, and change manager.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Blanch witnessed the joy and power of community care and collaboration. She has worked in philanthropy for over ten years, supporting social justice leaders, organizations, and movements.
Since 2021, Blanch has co-led a funder working group focused on implementing and retooling grantmaking practices that are relational and responsive. She has designed and facilitated sessions for Grantmakers for Effective Philanthropy, PEAK Grantmaking, Philanthropy New York, the C4 Funder Peer Learning Group, and Fluxx. Today, Blanch works at the Grove Foundation, a private family foundation, and its 501c4 social welfare sister organization, the Grove Action Fund. Blanch has held grantmaking positions at intermediaries, community, and family foundations. She has volunteered with local and national nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Before philanthropy, Blanch worked in fundraising for a Los Angeles social justice-focused nonprofit.
Blanch holds a master’s degree in Public Administration, a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Sector Management, Human-Centered Strategy, and a BA in History and Communications.
She is an alum of the Justice Funders Network’s Harmony Initiative, Southern California Grantmaker’s Emerging Leaders Peer-to-Peer Network, and the African American Board Leadership Institute. Blanch lives in the Bay Area with her husband and rescue puppy, Summer.