Listening and Feedback

The Hewlett Foundation believes that listening and feedback practices help ensure we are building strong partnerships with the organizations we work with and contribute to better outcomes. Listening and feedback are also critical components of the Hewlett Foundation’s commitment to learning.

Encourage and incorporate feedback from the people and communities impacted by our work, understand the connection between feedback and better results, foster more openness between and among foundations and grantees, and share more of what we learn.

The Hewlett Foundation participates in the Fund for Shared Insight, a national funder collaborative seeking to improve philanthropy by promoting high-quality listening and feedback in service of equity. The Fund for Shared Insight supports foundations and nonprofits to be meaningfully connected to the people and communities impacted by their work, especially those most harmed by structural racism and other systemic inequities, and to be more responsive to their insights and feedback.

The Fund for Shared Insight is administered by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and was initiated in 2013 by the Hewlett Foundation and eight founding co-funders. Its core funders currently include the Hewlett Foundation, the Barr Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, the JPB Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with other funders who support either the overall initiative or specific projects.

Along with building capacity for high-quality client feedback loops in the social sector, the Fund for Shared Insight’s pooled resources provide grants, learning opportunities, inspiration, and community building around participatory grantmaking, feedback research, funder listening, field building, and expanding feedback efforts internationally. The Fund for Shared Insight’s signature initiative, Listen4Good, offers expert tools, coaching, and resources to direct-service organizations ready to improve their capacity to listen.