Redesigning funder-grantee power dynamics 

For most nonprofit leaders, walking into a room full of funders and fellow grantees is not a neutral experience. The traditional site visit or grantee convening carries an implicit dynamic: Funders evaluate; nonprofits perform.

How can we change that?

At Saint Luke’s Foundation, we’ve spent several years asking that question—and we’re not the only ones. Funders increasingly recognize that traditional engagement structures can limit their ability to fully understand grantee needs and community impact. A majority of nonprofit leaders say funders are reducing restrictions and streamlining processes. What’s less documented is what becomes possible when foundations redesign not just the paperwork, but the room itself.

A shift in power dynamics leads to deeper insights and connections

Rather than rigid site visits or formal progress reviews, we host Joint Strategy Partner Learning Sessions. These convenings bring together multiple strategy partners—the nonprofits we fund, whom we see as partners in the work, not recipients—alongside foundation staff and board members, for structured but causal dialogue. The goal is not evaluation but exchange. Nonprofit leaders present their work in their own voice, ask questions of one another, and surface connections that separate reporting relationships rarely produce.

“Going into the Joint Strategy Partner Learning Session, I felt nervous about the perception of how we are accomplishing our goals set by philanthropic institutions,” shared a representative from Cleveland VOTES, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization, about her first session.

But the shift in power dynamics could be felt almost immediately.

“Once we dove into our presentations, the sharing of the impact of our programming permeated the room,” she reflected. “The board and partner organizations asked questions that offered insight on how to better engage one another and the Saint Luke’s community.”

How can funders foster authentic exchange?

A convening that enables authentic exchange requires deliberate design. A few lessons we’ve learned along the way:

1. Create space before the session begins.

Before each session, our president and CEO sets the tone directly, communicating clearly that questions come from curiosity, not interrogation, that there is no scoring rubric, and that organizations are the experts in the room. We also acknowledge openly that walking into a room with funders and board members can feel high-stakes, and normalizing that nervousness out loud, before the session begins, is part of the design.

That transparency shifts the power dynamics in measurable ways. When organizations know they’re not being evaluated, they stop managing their image and start sharing their reality. Conversations shift from polished progress updates to honest exchanges about what’s actually hard, what’s working unexpectedly, and where they need support. A nonprofit leader who might have carefully framed a challenge as a minor obstacle in a written report will name it plainly in a room where the funder has already said: We’re here to learn, not to judge. That shift from performance to candor is where the real learning begins.

2. Let nonprofits tell the story behind the numbers.

Policy Matters Ohio, a research and policy advocacy organization, advised fellow participants: “Come ready to tell your story, not just your stats. Be open to learning from others in the room. It is not about being perfect, but about being real and authentic.” In one session, a housing organization shared that transportation barriers, not program quality, were preventing residents from accessing services. Another nonprofit in the room had existing relationships that could help address that gap. Without an authentic exchange like this, those nonprofits wouldn’t have connected.

Funders also hear what organizations rarely put in writing: leadership transitions, capacity constraints, the need for partnerships outside a program’s stated scope, insights that most directly shape how support should be provided.

3. Let the connections happen organically.

Some of the most valuable outcomes have grown from the foundation’s effort to connect grantees working in complementary spaces. Organizations working on policy, civic engagement, housing, and legal aid have exchanged contact information, begun collaborations, and discovered shared challenges that may never have surfaced through their separate relationships with a funder alone.

Redesigning the room helps both nonprofits and funders

For nonprofit leaders, a funder willing to redesign how it engages is signaling something meaningful about partnership. Questions worth asking include: Does this space create room for authentic exchange, or only for reporting? Are the people who shape institutional priorities engaged in the community work itself? Is the goal to evaluate what you’ve done, or to understand what you’re learning?

When funders redesign the room, they gain a different kind of knowledge from what’s captured in a progress report—knowledge that lives beyond what the data points can capture: what a nonprofit is quietly struggling with, what two organizations could build together, what a community actually needs that no grant application has yet named.

And when that knowledge is rooted in candor rather than compliance, funders are better positioned to direct resources toward what communities actually need, not just what looks strongest on paper.

The sector talks often about trust. What these sessions have taught us is that trust is not just a value to declare. It is a room to design.

Photo credit: Alaina Battle, Abphotogr3phy and Design