Equitable Grantmaking Series: Data-Driven Philanthropy Workshop

Data has become a powerful tool for positive change, and philanthropic organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to leverage information to build stronger relationships with their grantees and streamline reporting processes. On January 25th, we gathered a group of funders at the Valencia Park/Malcolm X Library for a workshop facilitated by the UpMetrics team.

You can view the slides from the presentation here and access UpMetric’s impact framework activity here.

Attendees collaborated with their peers to discuss challenges, share success stories, and develop actionable strategies for incorporating data into their funding practices. In the words of Stephen Minix from UpMetrics, “Humanizing is important: if we only look at numbers, we lose inspiration.”

Topics Covered:

1. Building meaningful relationships. We explored the key elements to foster meaningful collaborative partnerships with grantees. This includes going beyond traditional grantmaking by leveraging data to understand the unique needs and challenges of grantees. Thus, you can empower them to lead with what success looks like.
2. Data-driven decision-making. We discovered how data analytics can transform approaches to philanthropy. Defining, examining, collecting, and leveraging data are all incredibly important to inform strategic decisions, optimize resource allocation, and maximize impact.
3. Streamlining reporting processes. We closed out by discussing best practices for streamlining the reporting process, from grantees to funders. This included innovative approaches, tools, and technologies that can simplify data collection, reporting, and evaluation, enabling more efficient and transparent communication between philanthropic organizations and their grantee partners.

Thank you to everyone who joined us, and visit our Event Page to make sure you don’t miss our future programming!