Equitable Grantmaking Series: Transforming Philanthropy Through Strategic Learning

This deep dive aims to transform the way participants approach evaluation and reporting, making their philanthropic efforts more strategic, equitable, and impactful.

Evaluation and reporting in philanthropy have traditionally been compliance-driven and transactional, often reinforcing power imbalances between funders and grantees. This session, led by experts Stephen Minix and Greg Woodburn from Upmetrics and Dr. Adriana Loson-Ceballos from Colmena-Consulting, will disrupt these traditional practices by exploring how reporting and evaluation can be leveraged to enhance collaboration, mutual learning, and impact.

Participants will engage with Stephen and Greg as he addresses the reformation of grantee reporting requirements to better support equitable outcomes. Adriana will then guide attendees through the nuances of equitable evaluation, emphasizing strategic impact assessment without punitive measures. The focus will be on using grantees’ reports and evaluations as tools for strategic philanthropy, emphasizing power-sharing, accountability, and continuous learning.

Through interactive presentations and thought-provoking discussions, attendees will leave with actionable insights on how to implement equitable evaluation and reporting practices that support transformative change in their philanthropic efforts.

This session is designed for philanthropists and philanthropic organizations committed to advancing equity through strategic and thoughtful evaluation and reporting practices. Participants will challenge ingrained biases in traditional grantee data collection and evaluation and foster a partnership-oriented and trust-based approach to philanthropy.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Identify and challenge biases inherent in traditional evaluation and reporting practices.
• Understand the historical context and current dynamics that shape evaluation and reporting in philanthropy.
• Develop strategies to reform grantee reporting requirements to promote collaboration and equitable power dynamics
• Implement equitable evaluation frameworks that focus on meaningful impact rather than mere compliance.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning and strategic risk-taking in their philanthropic endeavors.
• Create evaluation and reporting practices that serve both the funder and the grantee in a partnership model, rather than a vendor-client relationship.

Target Audience

This program is designed for members of Catalyst. If you are interested in Catalyst membership, please contact [email protected].

Catalyst is committed to making our events accessible to everyone. Please let us know how we can help you fully participate by contacting [email protected]. 

Speakers

Dr. Adriana Loson-Ceballos | Founding Co-Owner of Colmena Consulting

Dr. Adriana Loson-Ceballos is a seasoned evaluation, research, and fundraising consultant. Adriana co-founded Colmena-Consulting, a radical cooperative of consultants with marginalized identities and social justice values working with philanthropic organizations to move resources to communities in alignment with their institutional values and commitments. Drawing from her passion for collective action and shifting power, Adriana works to: systematize and synthesize organizational learning, facilitate stakeholder engagement in strategic design and evaluations, and conduct values-aligned data collection and analysis.

With a background spanning over a decade in fundraising, Adriana brings a unique lens to her work, having been deeply involved on both sides of the philanthropic exchange of funds. This ability to straddle the border of the movement of resources helps her bring community voices into decision-making spaces within philanthropy. Adriana’s commitment to collective action is evident in her roles as an embedded evaluator for Philanthropy Together and her recent participatory evaluations of initiatives like the LatinXCEL Fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the Latino Giving Circle Network at the Latino Community Foundation. Her approach to evaluation and research is participatory and rooted in critical theories, centering community voices often overlooked in decision-making processes.

Based on the US-Mexico border, Adriana’s passion for social justice and community empowerment continues to drive her efforts in reshaping philanthropic practices for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Greg Woodburn | Director of Sales Engineering at Upmetrics

Greg Woodburn (he/him) is a girl dad and the Director of Sales Engineering at UpMetrics, where he works with partners at the intersection of their strategic, technical, and operational dimensions to build impact measurement and management solutions. Prior to UpMetrics, he has bridged various sectors and disciplines at the Clinton Global Initiative, Right To Play, and Give Running with a focus on early childhood development and sports-based youth development. Greg is a proud “Double Trojan” earning both his BA and MBA with honors from the University of Southern California and having walked on the USC Men’s Track & Field Team for four years to be elected Distance Team Captain as a senior. He believes relationships are life’s greatest gift—and we honor all the people who have given us opportunities by paying forward their generosity through service.” 

Stephen Minix | Senior Director of Community at UpMetrics

Stephen joined UpMetrics in 2015 for one reason: a unique opportunity to continue to uplift communities. In his role as Senior Director of Community Strategy, Stephen empowers partners to utilize their data to accelerate progress toward outcomes: informing all decisions, gaining new insights, and telling their story to a wider audience.

Stephen is passionate about building capacity at impact organizations as he has dedicated his life’s work to the advancement of youth and communities through education and development. He began his career by serving young people and communities in Southern California as a public school and public charter school teacher, coach, athletic director, administrator, district coordinator for afterschool programs, and adjunct professor. He was recognized as the CIF Los Angeles City Section Athletic Director of the Year in 2015.

Today, Stephen continues to be active in the community, serving as a Green Dot Public Schools Ambassador and an inaugural board member (board chair) for MENTOR California. Stephen graduated from Pepperdine with a BS in Physical Education and a MA in Secondary Education.

Stephen is married with three young daughters and is a #girldad for real!