Fund for Shared Insight

Encourage and incorporate feedback from the people we seek to help, understand the connection between feedback and better results, foster more openness between and among foundations and grantees, and share more of what we learn.

In 2014, the Hewlett Foundation began to participate in Fund for Shared Insight. Administered by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, it pools financial and other resources contributed by a core group of eight funders and makes grants each year in three main areas.

It funds nonprofits that want to initiate or improve the practice of systematically collecting and using feedback from the people they seek to help, and to share those data and insights with their funders, who can also use it to inform their own work. It supports research to explore the relationship between constituent feedback and outcomes, including whether such feedback provides a useful early indicator that a change in strategy is warranted. And it invests in efforts to increase openness on the part of foundations – both what they share with others and what they are open to learning.

To encourage nonprofits and foundation to more consistently consider the experiences, perspectives and preferences of the people we seek to help, the Fund for Shared Insight launched a grantmaking initiative called “Listen for Good.” Listen for Good helps nonprofits implement simple and rigorous feedback loops through a partnership with SurveyMonkey. Funders from around the country nominate grantees and contribute $20,000 if their grantee is selected; the Fund for Shared Insight, in turn, provides a two-to-one match – resulting in a $60,000 grant for the selected organization. Bringing more funders and nonprofits together can help set a norm for high-quality feedback in the field.