For decades, many of us in philanthropy have grappled with the extractive roots of our sector’s existence. With increasing awareness and understanding, our charges have never been more clear: beyond the mobilization of abundant resources, we must act from a place of true accompliceship, meaningfully shifting power to communities, and heeding the wisdom of movement.
This shift of power requires a power analysis and willingness to trust the community, allowing for more radical inclusion of voices; a greater practice of democratization in how funding is offered and analyzed with our communities; and, ultimately, greater transparency around our grantmaking processes.
It also requires the shifting of ourselves and our processes—for example: our approach to reporting and evaluation, which, at present, center our institutions instead of the wisdom, dreams, and desires of our grantee partners. When we asked our communities to share their experience with evaluation, we heard about lopsided power dynamics and misaligned practices. “Long and not very engaging.” “Too long processes that lead to negative feelings for me.” “Incompatible processes, incompetent researchers, out-of-community researchers.” “It was meant to be an affinity space, but the facilitators didn’t make space for intersectional experiences.”
It is with these words in mind that we set out to examine our own reporting, impact, and evaluation processes—and thus, the Movement-Defined Learning Project was born.
We are honored to present this powerful new tool and accompanying resource hub—born from the brilliance of Black organizers and developed to ensure more abundant resources for their work—during Black August, as we all commemorate Black political prisoners, re-ground in Black freedom struggles, and undergo the political education necessary for our collective liberation.
Process
The Movement-Defined Learning Project is a participatory learning project created to ask—and answer:
What does it look like to engage and center our grantee partners in our evaluation methods?
How can philanthropy align its approach to evaluation with how organizers measure and track their own progress?
How can the philanthropic sector utilize reporting processes to better understand what our grantee partners need to thrive?
Over several months, we convened a group of Black grassroots organizers to dissect and discuss what it looks, feels, and sounds like to experience success, the anecdotes that demonstrate the real and human impacts of their efforts, and the consequences of philanthropy’s approach to impact evaluation being disjointed from the reality of social change needs in our daily lives.
The words and wisdoms exchanged in these sessions coalesced in the creation of the Movement-Defined Learning Tool, a framework to capture wins, challenges, needs, and insights—resulting in data collection that is more human-centered, less redundant, and capable of transforming our collective efforts towards safety, liberation, and joy.
Reflection
The process was facilitated well. Dialogue on various pieces yielded a culture of collaboration and directly shaped the tools. Values were held with care and participant time was valued tangibly.
— Movement-Defined Learning Project Participant
On June 6, we—the Black Led Movement Fund, Communities Transforming Policing Fund, and Social Insights Research—grateful stewards of this work, gathered funders and changemakers to learn about the liberatory research methods that resulted in the development of this new tool, and collectively vision opportunities its utilization might create.
We unpacked our own experiences of power in program evaluation, learned more about how movement organizers measure progress towards immense goals, and discussed what organizers need from donor partners to sustain their critical work. Above all, we arrived at a deeper understanding of how shifting our reporting and evaluation methods can be a portal through which we strengthen our shared work and visions.
Here are five additional nuggets gained through our conversations:
- Funders have endless roles to play in the pursuit of social change, for example, cultivating a culture of learning through reciprocal transparency and accountability with grantee partners. As folks in close proximity to an aggregate view, we have the opportunity to utilize our reporting and evaluation practices not only to better understand what grassroots movements require but also to conduct landscape analyses that bolster the ecosystem’s knowledge base. Funders, then, have a dual charge: to shift towards less burdensome, more values-aligned reporting practices—and to take action with the information they collect. This means compiling birds eye insights for the field and communicating, with transparency, the ways in which grantee feedback and goals inform our strategies and processes.
- There is great power in language, and as we discuss shifting our practices, we should also discuss how we might shift our language. For example, the philanthropic sector can move away from “evaluation” language towards language like “celebrations,” “accomplishments,” or “insights.” This shift in language would change the pressure placed on grassroots partners to evaluate or, in some cases, justify their (often multi-pronged, immeasurable, and long-term) work.
- By centering grantee partners in their work, funders can act as true accomplices to movements for justice. Philanthropy must shift away from answering, “What do we want to know?” to “What do organizations need to know about themselves and their peers so that they can be more effective—and win?”
- The participatory process itself is a powerful outcome for grantmaking institutions. It deepens relationships with grantee partners, increases transparency and understanding of grantmaking strategies, and enables funders to shift their strategies and practices to align with the needs of movement in real-time.
- More is needed to democratize and support one another in implementing liberatory research methodologies—and in convincing those who hold power (such as trustees) to shift to reimagined approaches. As funders understand how to shift and prioritize this work, they should also consider resourcing the development, knowledge exchange, and continued education of projects like this.
At Borealis Philanthropy, we see it as our responsibility to be a conduit and champion for necessary transformation across the philanthropic sector. As donor organizers, we are proud to welcome our philanthropic peers to join us in moving towards liberatory research methods, an essential step in our pursuit of liberation.
You can explore the new tool and accompanying resources, including the results our own implementation of the tool yielded, at borealisphilanthropy.org/movement-defined-learning/. To connect with our team, email mvmtlearning@borealisphilanthropy.org.