Why the Bush Foundation is publicly reporting its own performance

It’s a daily reality for nonprofits to write proposals and reports for funders with metrics to show the effectiveness of their work. Can foundations do the same for their own work?

Even foundations that have websites or publish annual reports don’t actually say much about whether they’re doing a good job. So, what defines a foundation’s own success, and how can that success (or not) be communicated more openly?

How we apply radical openness to our grantmaking and performance

Through our commitment to be radically open, we’ve made big shifts in our grantmaking practices with the intent to be more transparent, accessible, and engaged with the communities we serve. One shift is that we do all our grantmaking through open application processes so everyone in our region—North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and the 23 Native nations that share the same geography—has the opportunity to be considered. Another is that we will talk with anyone interested in a grant or fellowship before applying through our contact hub.

We’ve also applied our radically open framing to understand and share how we think we’re doing as a grantmaker through our online performance scorecard. The scorecard includes 12 indicators that relate to our own activities and decisions—not the activities or impact of grantees—in three categories: what we fund, how we fund, and how we operate. For each indicator, we explain “why it’s important to us,” “how we are doing,” and “what’s next.”

Developing a public performance scorecard with input from stakeholders

Publicly sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of our work was a big deal for us. From a board perspective, members saw the risks and the effort as being worth it to operate with the highest possible standards of accountability and transparency.  From a staff perspective, we knew it would open us up to criticism and feedback we hadn’t heard before, and there was some apprehension.

Perhaps the best thing we did in making the scorecard—and something that helped generate more excitement about it—was to engage external stakeholders. For example, we interviewed about 20 nonprofit and philanthropic leaders to learn what would help make our work—and the broader philanthropy sector—less mysterious and more connected to community. We received so much great feedback that we responded to questions and ideas that didn’t fit on the scorecard on a separate “community questions” web page.

Selecting and tracking performance indicators

We also invested plenty of time engaging internally. One of the biggest challenges in developing the performance scorecard was taking the perspectives we’d heard and narrowing the indicators down to just 12. Once we selected the indicators, we had to figure out how to track and convey them through easily understandable data. We also had to learn how to talk about our work related to each indicator in simple ways to arrive at the “why,” “how,” and “what’s next” sections that would connect internally and publicly. The process was highly iterative, with multiple points for feedback, especially from staff who worked closest to the specific indicators.  

Three years in, we think the scorecard has helped translate our belief in transparency and accountability into action. It’s made us accountable for reporting on some of the same things that we ask grantees to tell us all about—turning due diligence inward. For example, we weren’t tracking how quickly we responded to applications. Seeing real data—and knowing others would see that data—pushed us to identify the challenges and opportunities to be quicker. That doesn’t change the fundamental power dynamics in funder-grantee relationships, but we hope mutual accountability helps build trust.

Building trust through continuous improvement and transparency

And we see building and maintaining trust with the communities we serve as a critical concern. We’ve seen the data on declining trust in institutions of all kinds. Our performance scorecard is one way to act on our commitment to listen and do better.  We’re continuously refining and improving the scorecard and how we use it to improve. We have to ensure it doesn’t become just something we update on our website—and we’re continuously having the meaningful conversations needed for real reflection and growth.

Getting started on a performance scorecard is simple

While a public performance scorecard might not be the right fit for every funder, we think every funder could benefit from an internal exercise as if you were going to create one. We offer some ideas in our performance scorecard learning paper. The simplest step is to ask: What does it mean for us to do a good job? How can people tell?

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