Maximum impact through measurable impact.
Data sits at the center of our philanthropy practice. More than just gathering and reporting, we believe in the power of actively applying data and research to effect change.
Our data insights agenda allows us to comprehend our own grantmaking impact, elevate our understanding of the issues and communities in which we invest, create dialogue to advance funding change, and evolve practice in the field locally and nationally.
Our goal is to utilize data as a means to:
- Guide our organizational strategy
- Hone our issue-based grantmaking
- Inform grantees on nonprofit best-practice
- Increase peer-to-peer community and nonprofit dialogue
- Foster to peer-to-peer funder dialogue and funding partnerships
- Heighten systems-change conversations and action among interested stakeholders
- Disseminate issue-based data briefs, white papers and relevant snapshots
“If you know you’re on a winning team, you move ahead a lot faster.”
Richard L. Duchossois
A Word on Evaluation
Implementing leading-edge measurement and evaluation methodologies is part of our commitment to strategic and outcomes-oriented philanthropy.
In partnership with grantees, we seek to establish a nimble evaluation practice that is strategy driven rather than compliance driven – committing ourselves to a mutual learning process.
Providing grantees the ability to establish clear, and ambitious performance goals for themselves rather than in response to the demands of external forces, helps us jointly to understand the impact of our grants and our grantees. We seek measurement and evaluation systems that give our grantees agency in shaping the terms of their metrics, while embracing accountability. Our goal is to create a learning eco-system with grantees that advances both foundation and nonprofit best-practice.
