Seeing Differently - Donors as Learning Organisations - Alliance 2006

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FOCUS ON . . .Seeing di≈erently?Donors as learningorganizationsInterview with Lizzie Zobel of the Sa Aklat Sisikat FoundationHow good is your organization at learning? Alliance asked anumber of donor organizationsfrom around the worldPLUSSigrid Rausing Trust newstrategic funds model

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Seeing differently? Donors as learning organizations

F O C U S O N . . .

This article looks at a number of interrelated featuresof learning organizations and how these play outwithin donor agencies. We consider some criticalissues about the ‘space for learning’ in those organi-zations with the intention to move beyond therhetoric to look at the context for, and practice of,donors’ engagement with themselves as ‘learningorganizations’. The other contributions in thisspecial feature were all written partly in response toan early draft of this article.

The learning organizationFor some donors, learning appears to be outweighedby self-belief. An author of this article, for example,was commissioned to evaluate the first phase of a €20million EU-funded educational reform programmein Central Europe only to discover that the secondphase had already been planned in detail. In caseslike these, learning tends to be replaced by a narrativeand financial report that inevitably demonstratesthat money was used appropriately and achievedwhat it was supposed to.

For other donors, there is genuine concern for impactand for learning with colleagues. At a communityfoundations conference in 2005, William H Gates Snrdescribed how their early childhood programmingwas shaped by learning from the Harlem Children’sZone. He concluded: ‘It is this kind of learning fromother organizations – who do what we do – thatmakes us all better philanthropists, but more impor-tantly, better at getting the results that are impactingthe lives of the families we serve.’ Evaluation ofimpact and peer exchange are critical aspects oflearning, but a learning organization needs to gobeyond ‘measuring the external’ to root reflectivepractice in its culture.

For us, ‘a learning organization’ has three criticalfeatures.

Conscious of selfFirst, it is constantly working towards being ‘con-scious of self’ – its world view, beliefs about change,purpose, values, relationships, culture, power, pat-terns and practices. This appears to be reflected, forexample, in ActionAid’s wish for its AccountabilityLearning and Planning System to ‘allow more cre-ative and honest assessment of change and createspace for staff to listen to and engage with the con-cerns of poor people . . . to critically look at what wehave achieved (or failed to achieve) through ourrights-based programmes and actions around theworld.’

CentredSecond, a learning organization is ‘centred’. Thismeans it draws its confidence and power to act fromthe knowledge that its actions are integral with itsworld view, beliefs about change, purpose, values and

other features noted above. Wherethis is not the case, organizationsare prone to tensions between be-lief and practice. This is common,for example, with intermediarydonors who may not have thechoice (financial security) to en-sure consistency between beliefsand practice, like the SouthAfrican foundation that talked

Alliance Volume 11 Number 2 June 2006 www.alliancemagazine.org

Space for learning?

Jenny Hyatt is Director of TheDevelopment School. She isFounder and Honorary President of Balkan Community InitiativesFund. Email [email protected]

Jenny Hyatt and Allan Kaplan

How do we really make a difference in the world? We act, we reflect,we learn and we change. This is particularly important for donors as they control resources that can enable or disable social change.Too often, however, reflection and learning are neglected out oforganizational complacency, fear of failure, and a paradigm ofimpact which is over-reliant on what can be counted rather thanwhat counts.

Guest editors for the special Alliance feature, Seeing differently? Donors as learning organizations

Allan Kaplan is a South Africanconsultant and a core associate of The Development School. Email [email protected]

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recently of ‘struggling to find the common groundbetween what corporate donors want and what webelieve makes a difference’.

Open to its ‘emergent self’Third, a learning organization is open to its ‘emer-gent self’. This means it hascapacities to read and make mean-ing of itself in relationship to itsenvironment, is aware of how itsown patterns influence how it en-gages with itself/the world, canview itself differently, and cantransform itself. These are chal-lenging capacities to develop. Forexample, ‘reading’ and ‘makingmeaning’ require us to become asaware of what we don’t see as ofwhat we do, both within our orga-nizations and with those withwhom we work. This places pri-macy on learning through relationship, reflectionand dialogue. Instead, there appears to be a greateremphasis on ‘tools’ for learning which can hide morethan they reveal. For example, a team supporting asmall grants programme for youth organizations inSouth East Europe found the McKinsey assessmenttool obscured rather than illuminated grantees’concerns.

Hence, a learning organization needs to haveprocesses and practices (not purely systems and tools)that enable it to be conscious of self, centred and opento its emergent self. Otherwise, the temptation is tobelieve that an elaborate monitoring and evaluationsystem (and regular exchanges with peers) issufficient for learning. The ‘we measure impact’mentality can result in a feeling that learning hasbeen ‘dealt with’ and that it is mainly about measur-ing things ‘out there’ rather than somethingembedded in the fabric of organizational life. Inshort, we need to remain aware that ‘Learning fromprogrammed information always hides reality be-hind a screen.’ (Ivan Illich, 1926–2002, radical thinkeron education and other key institutions of the indus-trialized world.)

The learning frameworkLearning is intimately connected to how organiza-tions view the world and the nature of change.Together these constitute their ‘framework’ – the

more or less conscious parameters within which theyset out their purpose, values, approach and practices.

Contrast, for example, Paul Wolfowitz’s (World Bank)use of market imagery for his ‘results-oriented’ mis-sion in which ‘today’s poor become tomorrow’sentrepreneurs’ with Stephen Heintz’s (RockefellerBrothers Fund) use of the language of social justice to‘collectively decide that there are better ways to man-age globalization that will create greater equity andopportunity and environmental sustainability in lessdeveloped countries’ (Philanthropy News Digest). Theserepresent very different world views and mark outthe terrain in which learning may take place.

Underlying these and other world views, there aredifferent beliefs about the nature of change. Putcrudely, some see change as predictable and control-lable while others view it as more dynamic, relationaland complex. In the former, learning is taken from atightly constructed view of the future – what works ordoes not in ‘achieving’ predefined outputs and out-comes. The range of enquiry is therefore muchnarrower. In the latter case, learning is much moreopen and invariably comes from the ability to readand make sense of what is present and at play in thecurrent situation.

In combination, world view and understanding ofchange can create more or less space for learning. Inillustration, the European Union sets out a worldview based on norms and standards developed byrelatively few people (its Terms of Reference) and amechanistic model of change (the logframe) andseeks information only to show compliance or diver-gence from the forecast results. What they receivetends to be a confirmation of forecast, rationalizedvariances and an illusory picture of social change. In other words, the world view itself may definelearning as pure accountancy.

Organizational boundaries and powerThis brings us to the question of how frameworks areconstructed, who is involved and whose interests theyserve. In short, it takes us to the issue of organiza-tional boundaries and power. Generally, power is ahidden force within donor-grantee-beneficiary rela-tionships and the rhetoric of partnership has buriedpower yet deeper in the psyche of their communica-tion. Yet, like the skeleton in the family cupboard,everyone is affected by the unspoken as much as bywhat is said. It directly affects the ability of all playersto engage in meaningful learning. Power is not (nec-essarily) a negative force, but if differentials in power

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizations

www.alliancemagazine.org Alliance Volume 11 Number 2 June 2006

The ‘we measure impact’mentality can result in a feeling that learning has been ‘dealt with’ and that it is mainly about measuring things‘out there’ rather thansomething embedded in the fabric oforganizational life.

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are not acknowledged they can exert a covert influ-ence on what donors, grantees and beneficiaries feelsafe to share.

Often this is reinforced by how donors choose to settheir organizational boundaries and how inclusivelyor exclusively they work with their governing bodies,staff, grantees and ultimate bene-ficiaries in learning. For example,we have worked with field officesthat feel unheard in their organi-zation and yet have great potentialto bring in learning from granteesand others on the ground. On theother side, members of founda-tion boards have been heard tocomment that they lack depth ofunderstanding to make grantdecisions, yet rarely are such deci-sions devolved to those who dohave that understanding (withnotable exceptions such as theregional offices of the Mott Foun-dation). Is it fair to conclude,therefore, that the term ‘donor-driven’ resonatesstrongly because it reflects how potential granteesand their beneficiaries feel about their share insetting the donor’s agenda?

The recent interest in social justice philanthropywould suggest growing awareness of the need toplace participation and equity at the heart of grant-making. Yet this requires more participatory andequitable processes for creating philanthropic strate-gies which place learning from practice at the centreof the organization. Without an inclusive approachto determining the agenda based on open andmutual learning, what is the nature of a donor’slegitimacy and integrity?

Motivation to learnPower is deeply connected to motivation to learn. Formany donors, power is derived from money. In thebest cases, this is mediated by enlightened governingbodies such as those established by some privatefoundations who draw their boundaries more in-clusively. In the worst cases, there is little or nomediation, particularly in the case of privately gen-erated wealth. Where is the motivation to learn whenyou are using your own wealth and believe that youare ‘doing good’ – a belief that might be counterbal-anced by some reflection on how much the wealthytend to consume in the process of acquiring their

wealth? It is not easy territory – to move rich peoplebeyond talking to one another or carefully selected‘locals’, to learn more directly from ‘unpackaged’ ex-periences. And yet we feel it is essential that donorscan look beyond the power of (their own) money toengage with a deeper level of learning.

Of course, not all donors have their own resources(although for many the notion of ‘doing good’ maystill serve to smother openness to learning). Forexample, a funding intermediary will have an iden-tity that is essentially more schizophrenic. Howevermuch it wishes to have an inclusive approach to learn-ing with grantees, it still has to satisfy a back donor.When the views of grantees and back donors do notcoincide, the intermediary is pulled in oppositedirections. If they become too concerned with finan-cial viability and sustainability (through keepingback donors happy), then they risk losing identityand integrity (with grantees and beneficiaries). In this tension, the motivation to work as a learningorganization can be seriously compromised.

However, we would argue that a learning organiza-tion is open to exploring both its essence and itspossible demise. Once its purpose is focused purelyon financial survival, the organization is not free andlearning becomes similarly constrained.

Accountability, risk and failureOrganizational frameworks and power tend to enterthe fabric of organizational learning via the languageof ‘accountability’. Unfortunately, accountability isoften reduced to a rather mechanistic set of ‘mea-sures of success’ – a weighing up of results or the costsand benefits of intervention. If it is felt necessary todemonstrate the ‘success’ of grantmaking, it inhibitsthe ability of the donor and the grantee to have anopen and honest exchange about anything that is nota ‘success’. Donors fear exposure, for example,through misuse of money (bi- and multilateralagencies) or public relations disasters (companies)and the grantee fears loss of support. Fear is a poorbasis for meaningful relationship or learning.

Few donors have a comfortable relationship with fail-ure, which many construe as a divergence from ‘agood (and often predefined) result’. For example, aUSAID contractor in Eastern Europe commented re-cently, ‘We don’t tell them what really happens. Whatabout the things that go wrong? They would nevergive us more money.’ Yet how else does learning takeplace and innovation happen? Have we thought ofhow many products we consume that were by-

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsSpace for learning?


Generally, power is ahidden force within donor-grantee-beneficiaryrelationships and therhetoric of partnership has buried power yetdeeper in the psyche oftheir communication. Yet,like the skeleton in thefamily cupboard, everyoneis affected by the unspokenas much as by what is said.

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products or ‘failed recipes’ like Worcestershire sauce or balsamic vinegar? A learning organizationneeds to be open to risk and hence able to embrace‘failure’. Essentially, we are talking about what PeterSenge, a stimulating writer on the learning organi-zation, calls ‘generative learning – learning thatenhances our capacity to create’rather than learning for re-inforcement of expectation.Otherwise, lines of accountabil-ity so easily turn into lines ofsubterfuge. (How many peoplereading this article can say thatthey have never presented theirresults in the best light to satisfya donor?)

Donor psychologyAt best, individuals have an ambivalent relationshipwith learning, yet organizations learn (or not) fromindividuals that make up the organization. Perhaps itis our own education (which rarely encourages con-sideration of world view, how change happens, ourpurpose and values, relationship with self and oth-ers, etc) that shapes how we perceive organizations aslearning spaces. We have argued that the frames thatare placed around learning (logframes, accountabil-ity measures) may discourage learning and mayindeed encourage distortion. Worse, they reduce theworld to bite-size pieces and lose the sense of self andwholeness. This is typified by the dominance of man-agerialism in the way many donor organizations areviewed and led – greater concern, for example, withgrant recommendation forms and pro-forma reportsthan with relationship-building with grantees. Yetfrom which is most learning drawn?

Trust is a prerequisite of a learning organization, as isthe ability to hold open dialogue and to help newmeaning emerge by ‘learning to talk differently,rather than arguing well’, as American philosopherRichard Rorty puts it. Yet the very nature of givingtends to make donors highly self-protective. At onelevel, the need to avoid bombardment for money isunderstandable but it has a pernicious affect on thenature of learning within an organization.

Similarly, the building of ego as a result of being in aresource-holding position can create a sense of asso-ciation with the worthiness of the activity and adisassociation from its frailties. Hence, donors needto be aware of how the ‘peripherals’ of how theyconduct business (where they stay, how they travel,

where and what they eat) affect the space for learn-ing. Perhaps, all donor education should include afly-on-the-wall opportunity to observe granteespreparing for their field visit, with time for the flies to reflect on what they see?

Learning societiesTo conclude, learning is a serious responsibility. Welive in a world whose complexity and pace of changeare growing exponentially. This has tended to resultin a frantic search for the ‘quick fix’ in the social aswell as the techno-economic sphere (not to be leftbehind); a focus on individual ‘survival’ (as resourcesbecome depleted) and a need to bring some sort oforder (rather than meaning) to what we are living.Because of this, even learning is viewed as an ‘addon’ – something that we draw from outside that weare lacking – or a task, something else to be achieved.Yet what we do not comprehend so easily, or perhapsfear, is the whole and its complexity; the potential forlearning as continually ‘here’ rather than yet anothercommissioned evaluative exercise; and the notion oflearning as intrinsic to our sustainable presence inthe world.

Many donors are uniquely placed to take a broaderand longer view and engage with the complexity.They have a longevity denied to the political ap-pointee; they are freer to travel and to observe; theyare more able to express a different vision; and theyhave the power to meaningfully engage others. Ifdonors are not seeing complexity, if they are notworking at the global level rather than at ‘home’(whether that is organization, nation or other con-struct), then who will encourage a learning society? If the focus is on ‘doing’ without reflection, as if wemay continually snatch the world from the mouth ofpoverty, disease and disaster, will we wake up to faceour own demise in the neglect of learning? @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsSpace for learning?


THE DEVELOPMENT SCHOOL

The Development School (tds) strengthens capacity for developmentalthinking and acting that enables poor and socially excluded peoples to set and realize their own agendas for social justice. It acts as ‘a universitywithout walls building skills without edges’ through validated learningprogrammes, dialogue and developmental processes with practitioners,donors and policymakers.See www.development-school.org

If the focus is on ‘doing’without reflection, as if wemay continually snatchthe world from the mouthof poverty, disease anddisaster, will we wake upto face our own demise inthe neglect of learning?

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The initial idea of what you wanted to achieve emergedfrom the reading campaign. How has the programmeevolved subsequently?First, the programme has evolved as we have cometo understand our partner agencies, specifically the Department of Education. But maybe the mostimportant insight we had was that we needed tofocus on the teachers not just on the students,because the teachers are the multipliers, and also the ones who need us the most. Often, theteachers are poorly trained. When we tested their comprehension levels and reading skills, we realized they lacked the skills they needed to be able to do their job properly and that more ofour investment had to go into retraining them, so we’ve developed a very strong teacher trainingcomponent. Many of the schools have no books tofoster reading, so we had to develop and increaseour investment in books too.

One of the support mechanisms that we’vedeveloped for teachers is a magazine, which is

a cross between a teacher manual and, for want of a better example, a sort of Cosmopolitanmagazine. Most of our conferences not only dealwith their teaching of reading but also with issueslike how to manage time, how to manage finances,and how to manage relationships with principals,their different supervisors and other colleagues so that they can do their work more effectively. We even talk about their psychology, managementskills, etc.

How did you come to understand all these things?What is the process by which the experience of theprogramme feeds into its change of direction?From the start of our teacher training workshops,we used an evaluation instrument to allow theteachers to discuss what they had learned from our workshops and what they felt their needs were.Looking at the results, we understood that theyneeded some help to develop their teaching andreading skills.

So we adopted a participatory monitoring andevaluation framework. We ask the project monitorsto feed us daily information on particular schools;we get information from the principals; we ask forevaluations from the teachers themselves duringimplementation and after and we look at theirlesson plans. We even analyse the books that thechildren use during the reading programme todiscuss the stories they read. And from all thesethings, we’ve been able to understand that thebigger question is who is teaching who.



InterviewLizzie ZobelThe Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation, established in 2001, aims toimprove literacy and instill a love of reading among primary school students in the Philippines. However, it’s not only thechildren who are learning. All those who run and implement thereading programme, from vice-president and founder Lizzie Zobel to the teachers involved, soon realized that they were learners, too.Its continuing success, Zobel explains to Caroline Hartnell, dependson constant self-questioning and a willingness to learn about theneeds of its beneficiaries and to ‘re-engineer’ itself to meet them.This attitude, she believes, is one that donors would do well toimitate.

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So from a reading programme we found ourselvesdeveloping more broadly into a teacher trainingorganization with a reading programme.

Was there ever a problem about getting really honestfeedback from the evaluations? How do you encouragethat?At the start, we used differentsurvey companies to evaluate theprogramme’s implementationand impact. The results wereextremely favourable, but whenwe looked at them carefully, we began to question them. Weasked, for example, the question:‘If given 20 pesos would you buyfood or would you buy a book?’Most children in the publicschool system live on two meals aday, yet 68 per cent were saying they would buybooks. It’s impossible to believe that. The surveycompany had not taken account of the culturalcontext. Filipinos want to please, they tend toanswer what they think you want to hear. So wehave to get the questions right.

We’ve always believed that every peso we take froma limited pool of donors might have gone to someother project that could have made a larger impact.So from the very beginning we’ve had a culture of responsibility and therefore of questioningourselves constantly. Are we doing what we say wedo? Can we be more effective? We’re just starting to develop a relationship with a poverty action labto see if our monitoring and evaluation strategycan be refined and instruments that are moreculturally sensitive developed, so that we get realanswers, not those that people want us to hear.

When you started the foundation, did you have anexplicit theory about how the change that you wantedto see would come about?We had a vision that we would build slowly butsurely a nation of readers. We thought that if wecould get to the students we could create a love ofreading and a habit of reading, and then we couldcreate a nation of readers. We thought that thatwould involve the teachers as implementers. Nowwe understand that they need to be thebeneficiaries, too.

Were these assumptions explicit things that youworked out for yourselves at the beginning that youthen explicitly changed?At the beginning, I don’t think we understoodcompletely the social, political and cultural context in which we were working. For one thing,the way we assumed the Department of Educationworked was completely different from the way itactually functioned. So our assumptions had tochange, and that has made us more effective in our implementation. We’ve become listeningpartners with the Department of Education, our implementers, our schools, and our learningcommunities.

The article by Jenny Hyatt and Allan Kaplan talks about being a learning organization with a culture ofreflecting on what sort of an organization you are, andyour position in the world, rather than just learning by measuring your external results. Do you feel thatthat’s the sort of culture you have in the foundation?I do believe that. We’ve not only used participatorymonitoring and evaluation strategies to harvestinformation from ourselves about how we areimplementing, but we’re continuously questioningwhether these reading programmes are having the impact that we want on the children. So ourcontinuing struggle is to re-engineer ourselves to make sure that what we do produces betterstudents and better learners.

Are there any things that you see as a barrier tolearning?I think that we have, almost to a fault, a self-questioning culture. Some of the people who workwith us are amused at our levels of self-criticism.But it all comes from a sense of responsibility,partly to our donors but mostly to our beneficiaries.I think that the constant questioning of ourmethods, our limitations and our results makes us a learning organization, because it gives us a



Some of the people who work with us areamused at our levels ofself-criticism. But it allcomes from a sense ofresponsibility, partly toour donors but mostly to our beneficiaries.

THE SA AKLAT SISIKAT FOUNDATION

The Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation evolved from a city-wide campaign to create awareness of the importance of reading and reading skills inManila in 1999. Its basic activity is a 31-day reading programme in primaryschools. SAS runs the projects itself, training the teachers and creating the necessary relationships with local government units, department ofeducation o÷cials and school principals. The programme’s main funder is Petron, which is the largest oil company in the Philippines. Petron covers a substantial part of the foundation’s administrative expenses and part of its programmes. Other parts of the programme are funded by other corporations, including Citibank, Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank, UBS Warburg, and Jolibee, which is a fastfood chain.See www.readerstransform.com

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sort of motor to constantly redefine ourselves to bemore effective.

Are there structures and processes in which thiscontinual self-questioning occurs, or is it constantinformal conversations, or is it a bit of both? We have informal conversations that come about as part of our evaluation process. But also we holddiscussion groups with those we consider to be our stakeholders. These include the teachers, theprincipals, Department of Education officials andsome members of our organization. Our facilitatorsinclude cultural anthropologists, sociologists andpsychologists. From those discussion groups, wearrive at some very interesting conclusions thatwe’ve incorporated into our operation manuals. We hold discussion groups before we implement anew programme, and often we hold them a coupleof months after in an effort to make sure that weare being as effective as possible.

Do you think it’s ever hard for people in these groups to say what they really think?I think the key thing is the manner in which weconduct them. We treasure our relationship withthe Department of Education and we try to besensitive to the culture that has developed withinthe Department. In fact we were told by theSecretary of Education that we were the longest-

standing partner and sub-contractor that theDepartment has worked with. That surprised us,because we’ve only been around for six years. Oneof the reasons seems to be that other partners finda lot of the structures within the agency to be veryfrustrating. In our case, we try to work with thesystem, so as not to be locked out of it.

Do you find your donors are interested in the things you learn and make use of them to adjust their ownprogrammes?We do work to get our donors to come to terms with what the educational system really needs. Alot of them don’t understand who the beneficiariesshould be or what their needs are as they have notworked within the system. We try to explain therealities of the public education system, but werealize that our donors also have very specificprojects in mind. We depend on their funding, so we try and find common ground between thetwo. Once they understand where we are comingfrom and what the realities of the system are, a lot of them come round and understand where the need lies, and how they can best invest in theeducational system.

Why does this problem arise? Do you feel your donorscome with preconceived ideas of what they want toachieve?Exactly. They have preconceived ideas of what theeducational system needs. And I don’t blame them,because a lot of these ideas were the ones we heldourselves before we started, and we came tounderstand the really important lesson – that themost important thing is to meet the needs ofteachers, and the effect of doing this will trickledown to the students in a multiplying way.

A lot of them think the children need books, but ifyou don’t have a teacher who can create a readingenvironment for the student, the book will stay on the shelf. One donor we work with had a long-established book donation programme for thePhilippines. We asked them what had happened to the books they donated and who had benefitedfrom them. When they investigated, they realizedthat many of the books had been lost or stolen orsimply locked up in warehouses. Now we’ve set up a partnership with them. We run the readingprogramme, and they come in after us and donatethe books to the learning communities that wework with. They’ve realized that if there’s noreading readiness, you’re just donating paper.

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsLizzie Zobel Interview

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Do you bring your donors into your discussion groups?No, we don’t. The discussions we hold with ourdonors are of a different nature because we’retrying to understand their needs, and we’re tryingto help them understand the beneficiaries’ needs.The people that we have in our discussion groupsare usually people that we bring in because wewant to re-engineer and re-tool our programme and we are interested in their inputs to better ourapproach.

One would assume that if donors want to supportreading in the Philippines, they would want to do it in the way that’s most effective. You at the Foundationare constantly thinking about the needs of thebeneficiaries and how they can best be met, so wheredoes this ‘need’ of the donors come from?A lot of our donors are from the private sector andthey want ownership of the programme. They don’twant to do the same thing that everybody else isdoing. They want to brand programmes so thatthey seem unique to them, because in some casestheir corporate social responsibility is part of theirexternal affairs. For example, we had one donorthat wanted to have a competition to find the most innovative and creative reading programme.In the event, most of the entries were not reallyinnovative. The conclusion we drew from this was that we couldn’t jump into trying to makeinnovators and creators out of teachers whose skills were rudimentary. It then became clear to the donor that the investment had to be in the very basic skills of the teachers.

So if you wanted to give a message from yourexperience of working with donors, what would it be?There is so much desire to do good and so muchdesire to participate in social development.Everybody in the Philippines is involved in somekind of social development project. I always saythat I’d love to make a movie called ‘A day in thePhilippines without NGOs’, because I think thewhole country would fall apart. There are so manysmall and medium-sized NGOs that are doing somuch to plug the great holes that governmentservices do not fill, that are trying to understandthe system and its needs. If donors could grasp thatand realize that these groups have experience, thenwe could perhaps overcome their constant desire tomake things their own and so get better support.

We respect donors’ needs, and we’ve created areputation for ourselves. The strategic relationship

we have with the Department of Education has putus in a very good position with donors because bybeing a part of what we’re doing, they are able tocontribute to the educational system. So we’re verygrateful to our donors, and we try to see how wecan tweak and brand things in such a way that theyfeel their desire for distinctiveness is met.

Do you think, in dealing with your donors, that beingpart of the Ayala family helps? Does it mean you cantalk to your donors as peers, and they will recognizeyou as such? Or is it irrelevant?It’s actually been detrimental because a lot of the people we approach for funding believe thatthe family and their foundation should besupporting my project. But the reason that I do this independently is that I respect the fact thateach foundation has its own vision and missionand maintaining that is actually a large part of itssuccess. In our case, it is tempting to get involved in so many things related to reading, like writingbooks for children. But we focus on the readingprogramme because that’s what we’re about, that’swhat we believe in. We have our core competencies,and by sticking to them we believe we can be moreeffective than we could by spreading ourselves toothinly. And the Ayala Foundation, too, has its owncore competencies and its own vision.

In any case, I like to see myself as independent. I don’t want a family foundation to feel it has tofund me just because I’m a family member. Wehave been very lucky to be associated with somegreat companies that believe in what we’re doing,and so I haven’t thought to knock on the AyalaFoundation’s door.

I’d just add that, being associated with a donorfamily and with the business world – I had my own company for many years – I understand whatthe private sector is looking for, and the kind oftransparency, business discipline, results andreturn on investment that they’re expecting. At thesame time, I’ve come to understand the structuresand the strategic relationships that put certainlimitations on that. @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsLizzie Zobel Interview


Elizabeth (Lizzie) Eder Zobel is an entrepreneur and socio-civic leader inthe Philippines. She is co-founder, vice president and treasurer of Sa AklatSisikat. Among other things, she is also a founding board member of MuseoPambata, an interactive museum for Filipino children. She is married toJaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, President and CEO of the Ayala Corporationand Vice Chairman of the Ayala Foundation.Email [email protected]

tion. This alone will not create a learning organi-zation or turn decision-making into a simple process,but ‘it does help us recognize our priorities’.

While Andrés Thompson feels that the Kellogg Foun-dation is ‘very strong in the self-consciousness of itsworld view’ and ‘well centred in the sense that it cantranslate its views and values into sound action andprogramming in a very consistent manner’, he feelstheir weakest component is in being open to its ‘emer-gent self’. ‘We are usually not as aware as we should beabout how the external world views us and what theyexpect from us.’

Luc Tayart believes KBF to be ‘a very open learningstructure where in principle all players have aninput’. All grantgiving around a programme, aproject or an issue is done by a selection committeeconsisting of the relevant stakeholders. He sees tak-ing the other stakeholders into account as crucial toeffectiveness: ‘We have to learn (listen, dialogue, in-teract, take advice) from the stakeholders involvedin the societal issue we are working on. If you want toachieve your objectives, you had better be right aboutyour theory of change.’

How do they learn? All the respondents have their own means of learningfrom what they do. The National Foundation for India(NFI), says Partha Rudra, has ‘five-yearly externalreviews and regular interactions with partners on a one-on-one basis. Occasional consultations withthem in larger groups also help us to learn and beopen to different perspectives.’ NFI is also, he says,‘halfway through its visioning and repositioningexercise. The process has sharpened our ownunderstanding of how to think about and presentour work in a clear, comprehensive and strategicmanner.’

KBS has advisory committees aswell as selection committees, asLuc Tayart explains. ‘Because thegrants are usually only onemethod of achieving the objectiveof a project, the programme offi-cer has a broader theory of change.An advisory committee is veryoften formed to create and adviseon this theory of change, againwith the different stakeholdersinvolved in the project.’

Alliance would like to thank the following for contributing to this article:

Partha RudraProgram Coordinator,and Ajay MehtaExecutive Director,National Foundationfor India

Nadya K ShmavonianVice President forStrategy andLearning, RockefellerFoundation, USA

Luc Tayart de BormsChief Executive, KingBaudouin Foundation,Belgium

Andrés ThompsonProgram Director forLatin America and theCaribbean, W KKellogg Foundation,Brazil

Aleksandra VesicExecutive Director,Balkan CommunityInitiatives Fund,Serbia

p 34

Is learning a means or an end? In the view of LucTayart de Borms of the King Baudouin Foundation(KBF), it is emphatically the former. ‘Learning is an in-strumental goal for an organization not an objectiveas such,’ he says. ‘The overall objective of a foundationis to achieve impact. For that, it is necessary to be alearning organization which gets its knowledge man-agement correctly in place.’

How good are they?How did our respondents assess themselves as learn-ing organizations? Aleksandra Vesic at the BalkanCommunity Initiatives Fund (BCIF) admits that it isdifficult to assess, but suggests that ‘being open to theprocess of learning is the precondition for being goodat it’. At the moment, she says, BCIF is intensively‘learning to learn’.

It is helped in this regard by a ‘strong understandingwithin the organization about the framework withinwhich we operate – what we want to achieve and whatare the values and beliefs that guide us – and a com-mitment to ongoing dialogue on this subject’. Thiscreates a high level of integrity within the organiza-



Learning to learnAndrew Milner

In the overview article for this feature (Space for learning, p26),Jenny Hyatt and Allan Kaplan outline their paradigm for a learningorganization and the various ways they feel that donors are fallingshort of it. What do the donors themselves say? Alliance askedrepresentatives of five donor organizations around the world howopen they feel their organizations are to learning and how theyadapt in response to their beneficiaries and the changingcircumstances in which they work.

p 35

According to Andrés Thompson, ‘During the last fouryears the Kellogg Foundation has been involved inan organization-wide and sustained effort to improveits learning capabilities. We are much better now atunderstanding how we can work together internallywhile at the same time understanding the commu-nities that we serve.’ But, he concedes, ‘there is a longway to go.’

Speaking from his own experience, which he is atpains to point out is restricted to Latin America, ‘inthe North-east of Brazil we are working with granteesaround the framework of a “learning community”,thus promoting a virtuous circle of theory, practiceand capacity-building.’

Aleksandra Vesic describes four sources from whichBCIF learns: from other grantmakers; from grantees– BCIF ‘organizes convenings of grantees from differ-ent communities who are working on similar issues:this enables both grantees’ and BCIF’s learning’; fromexamination of its own work – it looks at the ‘per-centage of approved vs rejected applications, resultsof approved grants, reasons for rejection. This servesas a check-point: did we set the programme and cri-teria in the right way. If not, it gives us the frameworkfor intervention’; and from other sources of inspira-tion as widely scattered as literature, history and thesocial sciences.

Like Andrés Thompson, she uses the word ‘cycle’. Ineach case, information has to be gathered, analysedand reflected upon. Where appropriate, the resultsmust be implemented and the change analysed. ‘Allthese steps,’ says Vesic, ‘create a cycle, because whenthe last step is made we must start again from the be-ginning. Furthermore, it is important to understandthat this is not a “clean” linear process. A sense ofprogress will suddenly be interrupted by an unex-pected drawback or the throwing up of additionalquestions. This too,’ she says, ‘is part of learning.’

Conflict between grantee needs and donorrequirements What about some of Hyatt and Kaplan’s specificcriticisms, for instance about organizations’ notbeing centred – a common complaint, they suggest,for intermediary donors who may not have ‘thefinancial base to ensure consistency between beliefsand practice’?

Partha Rudra is clearly getting at this when he saysthat NFI is ‘struggling to bridge the gap betweendonors and grassroots needs. While appreciating the

need for monitoring and evaluation of outcomes andimpact, we also want to learn to appreciate con-straints faced by voluntary action groups on theground.’

At least NFI has a good perspective on this: ‘As a recip-ient of grants, we are privy to the experience of being

a grantee and having to adjust todonors’ priorities even when thesedon’t match with ours. Balancingdifferent perceptions and findingcommon ground is something weare trying to learn.’

For Aleksandra Vesic, too, a diffi-cult balancing act is involved. Shebelieves that being an indigenousgrantmaker and in a stage of in-

tensive development creates special conditions forBCIF: ‘Learning is always a question of finding a finebalance between completing the work that needs tobe done and setting aside time for thinking moredeeply about the work that is done; between obtain-ing results that will be appealing to donors andcreating the internal “spaces” for staff and the orga-nization as a whole to better understand theprocesses of change we are involved in and the im-pacts we are having.’

Striking this balance involves compromises, she ac-knowledges, which sometimes means that learningand reflection are postponed.

Fear of failure?There is such a premium placed on success, believeHyatt and Kaplan, that there is a corresponding re-luctance to admit failure. This is most clearly the casefor grantees who want to maintain their source ofsupply, but also applies, they suggest, to donor orga-nizations who close their eyes to failed programmes.Is this true of our respondents?

Not at NFI, believes Partha Rudra. Admitting mistakesis crucial to its development: ‘We encourage bothstaff and partners to learn from their experiences onthe ground and to admit failures as much as sharesuccesses.’ Likewise, BCIF has found it ‘extremelyhelpful to take the approach that making mistakesand accepting responsibility for them are an impor-tant part of the learning process rather then to beviewed as failures. The ability to be honest with our-selves,’ adds Vesic, ‘is essential.’

Nadya Shmavonian at the Rockefeller Foundationbelieves that this ‘fear of failure’ is overstated. While



‘As a recipient of grants, weare privy to the experienceof being a grantee andhaving to adjust to donors’priorities even when thesedon’t match with ours.’ Partha Rudra

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grantees may sometimes colour the truth in report-ing to donors, evaluation is not simply a question ofticking the right boxes: ‘At the end of the day, I trulybelieve that most people want to make a difference inwhatever endeavour they are involved in. Staff andboards of donor organizations are no different.’

It is not so much fear of failure orreluctance to admit it that is themain enemy, she believes, as in-ability to recognize it: ‘One of themajor obstacles to foundationlearning is our inability to identifyfailure when it occurs. I wouldargue that we don’t have enoughidentifiable “failures” as a sectorto feel that we are truly learning inour work.’ She adds: ‘Part of thechallenge is distinguishing thefoundation’s failure from that ofthe grantee. Real learning for afoundation must comprise an un-derstanding of both.’

EvaluationHyatt and Kaplan are likewise critical of approachesto evaluation which are obsessed with measurement.Shmavonian endorses the authors’ caution about anoverly mechanistic approach to evaluation but pointsout that it needn’t be like that. ‘There are tools to em-ploy in a continuum from simple grants monitoringto full-scale evaluation.’ Rockefeller uses all of these.In particular, and like the other respondents, she iskeen to stress external sources of learning: ‘Whilethere is real need for internal systems and space forlearning, one of the disciplines of philanthropy mustbe to constantly reinvigorate networks and probeexternal voices aggressively.’

Luc Tayart sums up: ‘To learn you also have to evaluateof course.’ He agrees that what he calls output evalu-ation is often too centred on measurement. ‘What isessential for a learning organization,’ he says, ‘is to in-vest in outcome and impact evaluation. If the overallobjective is a certain societal change, it is essential forus and for others to learn if the underlying theories ofchange and methodologies used were the correctones and what the lessons for the future are.’

The crucial thing, he implies, is interpreting the eval-uation correctly and then profiting from it. As NadyaShmavonian puts it: ‘Understanding impact is highlynuanced, and probably a never-ending pursuit, butessential to foundation effectiveness. Putting that

understanding into practice is vital. Measurementwithout a supporting learning environment to recy-cle that learning into future practice is a waste.’

Obstacles to learningOne of the greatest obstacles to becoming a learningorganization, according to the guest editors, is an or-ganization’s own culture, the assumptions on whichit bases its decisions, which can imperceptibly be-come axiomatic. This is something that AleksandraVesic acknowledges: ‘BCIF has a culture which canresult in the failure to regularly review strongly heldand widely accepted assumptions and beliefs. Find-ing strategies to avoid falling into this trap is a task weall face.’

There are other factors which get in the way of learn-ing, even when a donor organization theoreticallybelieves in it. With the best will in the world, oppor-tunities are generally limited. We have already heardVesic talking of the difficulties of achieving a balancebetween doing the work and finding time to learnfrom it. Partha Rudra also believes that at NFI: ‘Inter-nally the routine pressure of carrying out thebusiness, ie raising funds and administering grants,is the main blocker. Nor is the external environmentconducive to exchange and synthesis of key ideas andlessons from different approaches.’

‘We need to invest in systematic learning and effortsto capture key lessons from the field,’ he suggests,‘not restricted only to our grantmaking and philan-thropic domain but as widely and inclusively aspossible.’

There is also what Luc Tayart calls the ‘invented here,now and by me’ syndrome. ‘Too often programmeofficers will reinvent projects and programmes inisolation from what has been tried out by others out-side and inside the sector, and even inside their ownorganization in the past. This is an enormous waste ofenergy and money.’

The importance of trustAndrés Thompson agrees with Hyatt and Kaplan thattrust is important: ‘For an organization to achievesuch levels of understanding the building of produc-tive relations and trust is a must, and this is perhapsthe largest barrier that we all face in this world ofextreme competitiveness.’

Their wealth, suggest the authors, makes donorsextremely ‘self-protective’. For Luc Tayart, trust ismuch more profoundly involved in the work of a

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsLearning to learn


‘I would argue that wedon’t have enoughidentifiable ‘failures’ as asector to feel that we aretruly learning in our work.Part of the challenge isdistinguishing thefoundation’s failure fromthat of the grantee.’ Nadya Shmavonian

p 37

foundation than as a simple function of its role asdonor: ‘In my view, power has not only to do withmoney. Information/communication, people mobi-lization, knowledge and a brand name, for example,also create power relations and “power to change”.Foundations have most power to leverage changethrough their “convening” powerand not the money. Our moneypower will always be marginal inrelation to governments and theprivate sector, but the unique po-sition and brand name which wehave today (which involves trust inbroad parts of society) gives us im-portant responsibilities for thefuture.’

Influences from outsideHyatt and Kaplan talk a good dealabout the dangers of drawinghard-and-fast lines around an organization and itsattitudes and excluding everything that lies outside.In one way or another, as we have seen, all the re-spondents are aware of this and have taken steps tocounteract it. Aleksandra Vesic speaks to the pointhere when she talks about BCIF’s willingness to listen:‘One of the most important factors in the learningprocess is a constant nurturing of the organization’sability to listen: to listen to the people that we workwith and our peer organizations, and also to listencarefully to people who have different perspectiveson the issues we are addressing.’

Nadya Shmavonian emphasizes that it is just as im-portant to continually reinvigorate existing contactsas it is to look for new ones. ‘Even with existing net-works – our grantees, as well as failed applicants – wehave just participated in the Center for Effective Phil-anthropy’s Grantee and Applicant Perception Surveysas a means to obtain another window onto ourperceived practices and capacities.’

The importance of historyShe emphasizes the importance of the past for an in-stitution that has been around for as long as theRockefeller Foundation: ‘As we approach almost acentury of philanthropy, we absolutely cannot planfor our future without a strong self-consciousness ofour past – in many ways this must be our first point oflearning.’

How has the world changed in that time and how dothey interpret and learn from those changes? ‘We are

actively engaged in precisely the process the authorsdescribe – becoming more self-conscious of our insti-tution and work in relation to an increasinglycomplex world. An integrated process of learning andplanning needs to become an organic part of how wework.’

In addition to sources of information from which tolearn, she identifies another need, ‘an inexhaustiblehunger to learn from ever-changing networks ofpeople, and to push beyond the donor-grantee powerdynamic for real feedback’.

AccountabilityThis need, Shmavonian believes, must come fromwithin the organization. ‘It is the board and staff offoundations who must build a climate that valueslearning.’ While she agrees with the guest editorsthat accountability is too often translated intomisleading and simplistic measures of success, ‘I dothink that accountability within a foundation iscritical. We need to be accountable for our own adapt-ability, our capacity to recognize mistakes, to learnfrom external context, to change direction to meetchanging conditions and seize opportunities moreeffectively.’

Learning organizations?So opportunity and desire are both critical to the abil-ity of organizations to learn. Pressure of business isapt to get in the way of reflection, and some of ourrespondents concede the truth of Hyatt and Kaplan’sassertion that the ingrained habits of an organiza-tion can prevent learning.

How far do their organizations conform to the guesteditors’ paradigm for a learning organization – self-conscious of its world view, centred, and open to itsemergent self? While they may or may not use thislanguage, all our respondents recognize the ideas it’strying to express: the importance of a clear visionand the ability to give expression to it through theirwork; the need to continually consult those whomthat work is trying to benefit; and the ability tochange in response to reflection on themselves andon external circumstances. Most of them feel theyare doing this, even if not as effectively as they might.Perhaps the best summary of their response to thesethings is, as Aleksandra Vesic puts it, that they are‘learning to learn’. @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsLearning to learn


‘BCIF has a culture whichcan result in the failure toregularly review stronglyheld and widely acceptedassumptions and beliefs.Finding strategies to avoidfalling into this trap is atask we all face.’Aleksandra Vesic

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BvLF’s projects are all focused on early childhood de-velopment (ECD). We therefore need to be conversantwith particular bodies of knowledge, and since thisknowledge is continually evolving, we need to learn inorder to keep up to date. We also try to be reflectiveabout the application of ideas in practice and theireffectiveness. Among the characteristics we seek tocultivate as a learning organization are:� curiosity (admitting that there are many things

one does not know);� analysis rather than simple description; � an explicit ‘learning agenda’, and an ability to

work with partners we fund without our learningagenda becoming directive;

� clarity about the degree of certainty we feel wehave about questions (and answers) whichconcern us.

BvLF’s learning agenda In the current Strategic Plan, we define BvLF’s ‘learn-ing agenda’ as:

‘the term we give to our plans for delineating what we

need to learn, and what activities will allow us to enhance

the creation of knowledge in ECD. It is consciously defined

with partners, within the Foundation itself, with peer

organisations and with others we wish to influence.’

The learning agenda draws on the Foundation’s past,current and future interventions, as well as others’ ex-perience. It involves more conscious examination ofour field-based programming, studying existingknowledge and practice, and engaging in reflection,comparison and synthesis. It involves deriving lessonsfrom the specific themes, strategies, hypotheses andinformation that BvLF and its partners have decided topursue. For example, during the past four years theFoundation has focused specific attention on the well-being of young children affected by AIDS, and on howyoung children develop identity, empathy and pro-social behaviour.

Reasons for wanting to learn (and degrees of interest in learning) can vary within an organization, whichpresents challenges for those explicitly seeking to belearning organizations. From my perspective as direc-tor, our fundamental motivation for learning is to bemore effective. Learning makes us better funders, bet-ter partners, and better allies with peer organizationsin advocacy efforts. From an individual perspective,learning is refreshing and offers possibilities ofgrowth and renewal (though we should not forget that some of the most effective learning is throughdifficulty, and it can occasionally be exhausting as wellas renewing!).

Certainty and grantmakingBvLF has a long tradition of funding different kinds ofproject, from those based on solid research and expe-rience to those that are experimental, innovative, andeven embryonic in their conception. Because of thisdiversity, we have found it helpful to create a term-inology to reflect the fact that there are different de-grees of certainty in our programme development,which require different actions and strategies.

Relative certaintyOn some issues, we are convinced of the validity andstability of our reasoning and experience, for instance:� learning begins at birth; � parents are the child’s first teachers; � all cultures have important resources and

heritages to pass on to their children;� there is no single model of ECD provision that

works in all settings.



Who is ‘we’?Devising an explicitlearning agenda

Peter Laugharn isExecutive Director of BvLF. [email protected]

The Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) has long thought of itselfas an organization that draws insights from its field experience and shares them with a wide audience. Thus for years we havecombined grantmaking and publishing, with an implicit learningbridge between them. In our current Strategic Plan, 2002–06, wehave sought both to make this commitment to learning moreexplicit and to get greater leverage from it.

Peter Laugharn

THE BERNARD VAN LEER FOUNDATION

Established in 1949 by Dutch industrialist and philanthropist Bernard vanLeer (1883–1958), the Netherlands-based Bernard van Leer Foundation(BvLF) is a private trust with a mandate to improve opportunities forchildren aged 0–8 who live in circumstances of social and economicdisadvantage. They do this in two ways: funding and supporting earlychildhood development projects across the world (BvLF works in 21countries in five continents); sharing knowledge with the aim of informingand influencing practice and policy.See www.bernardvanleer.org

p 39

Our relative certainty about these beliefs does not stopus from seeking further evidence to support them,nor blind us to evidence to the contrary. None the less,on topics in this category, our task is to get our ideasand messages out to the wider community. The grantswe make are most likely to involve replication, dis-semination and advocacy. Thisincludes introducing tested ideasto new contexts or partners and/orworking on making the interven-tion more sustainable once ourfinancial contributions cease.

Working hypotheses On some issues we are working atthe level of the hypothesis, the edu-cated guess (ie, we are willing totake a risk). These are cases wherewe, or our partner organizations,have partial evidence or strong con-victions that a certain course ofaction will produce positive results.Here, our learning agenda willfocus on the first and second circuits of learning (seebelow), with an emphasis on creating a stronger for-mulation of basic issues, questions and hypotheses.Our grantmaking at this level is innovative: we areseeking creative solutions to long-standing problems.

Areas outside our learning agendaAlthough we are willing to take risks and pursue in-novative ideas, we recognize that there is a level ofcertainty necessary, and a knowledge base that mustbe explored, before we invest in field-based projects.Where questions are too vaguely formulated to giverise to a project, we need to study what others havedone, search the literature, explore questions withprofessional contacts, and provide learning space forstaff before funding projects in these areas. Similarly,there are areas where work is better carried out byothers, because of the specialization required, suchas projects in brain development research. In thesecases, it makes more sense for us to build on others’work than to fund projects ourselves.

How are we doing?We are now in our fifth year of this conscious effort tostrengthen ourselves as a learning organization, andwe have found it challenging but rewarding. I think wewere naive in our assumption that if we declared thatwe were all for learning, it would naturally occurwithin our organization and our partnerships, promi-

nently and explicitly. Our experience has been thatthere are many issues to be worked through.

It also appears that our initial reflections were rather‘partner-centric’, as though the knowledge of the or-ganizations we funded was intrinsically more valuablethan knowledge from other sources; we have now triedto balance this. We’ve also learned that it is easier tosay you want a learning agenda than to specify thatagenda (especially the good working hypothesis), sincedoing so means getting a lot of articulate andopinionated knowledge workers to agree to moreharmonization of thinking than they are used to.

Biases, power and boundariesBvLF has always sought to combine being a sensitive,respectful and listening funder with having a strongearly childhood agenda. We try to ensure that thisagenda does not make us directive, stubborn or blindto problems and possibilities, but we are up-frontabout having an agenda. To my mind, the resolution ofthis dilemma is to identify potential partners that arejust as passionate as we are about the potential ofyoung children and design approaches together (thisis why we speak of partners rather than ‘grantees’).

Who is ‘we’? – three circuits of learningWe also saw a few years ago that we had to be carefulabout what we meant by the word ‘we’. For us, thereare three different sets of ‘we’s. The ‘first circuit oflearning’ includes a programme staffer and the set ofpartner organizations they fund and work with; a‘second circuit of learning’ is our whole programmestaff together within our office in The Hague; and a‘third circuit’ includes our staff and the wider com-munity interested in early childhood. The first circuitis mostly about learning from field-based projects, thesecond is our in-house community of learning, thethird is linked by the exchange of published ideas orgrey literature. A large part of our knowledge work isensuring that insights circulate between the circuits.

In terms of accountabilities and mutual expectationswithin the first circuit, while we are interested inknowing how well projects have done, BvLF has neverbeen a bean-counting foundation whose primary con-cern is that outcomes conform perfectly to plans (‘yousaid you would establish 200 preschools; please ex-plain why only 197 were established . . .’). Thus I don’tthink that partners have been motivated to hide theblemishes.

But perhaps we have not sufficiently emphasized thefact that we have a strong interest in knowing why



BvLF has always sought tocombine being a sensitive,respectful and listeningfunder with having a strongearly childhood agenda. We try to ensure that thisagenda does not make us directive, stubborn orblind to problems andpossibilities, but we are up-front about having anagenda.

p 40

there are blemishes, or why a working hypothesisturned out to be partially or largely incorrect. We haveperhaps underestimated the extent to which the ac-countability mode, rather than the learning mode,predominates in reporting to donors. Similarly, we arecurrently trying to get partners to think and reportmore analytically – not just ‘whatmy NGO did last summer’ but theproblems they encountered, howthey resolved them, and insightsthat have helped them. In this way,the reporting is of greater rele-vance to a wider audience, andforms a more solid basis for com-parative learning.

Tough boundary issues In BvLF’s case, I believe the tougherboundary issues have occurred notso much between partners and the Foundation, aswithin BvLF itself, between a knowledgeable and ex-perienced programme staff who have in the past comeup with individual strategies for their portfolios, andthe Executive Director and management team, whohave been trying to make the overall foundation pro-gramme more coherent and higher-leverage. Theseissues have been complex and at times frustrating. Wehave not worked them all out yet, but it has been veryimportant to tackle them forthrightly.

How open-ended can learning be?One of the ongoing debates that we have had is abouthow ‘open-ended’ learning can and should be. Somecolleagues feel that the best learning is exploratory,less planned, and characterized by relative autonomy.Others are concerned that open learning can beinefficient or, worse, self-indulgent; our mandate andstewardship responsibility, they argue, push us towardmore pre-specified, results-oriented learning. My ownfeeling is that these two propositions are differentends of a continuum. But I also feel that since, by theirnature, endowed foundations are more likely to be onthe unstructured side of learning – since we are notaccountable to markets, electorates or other externalforces – we should continually ask ourselves whetherour learning is generating enough external benefit.Evaluations can help here.

Learning and practiceIn terms of putting learning into practice, we aredoing a number of things. We are trying to be clearerabout what it is we are seeking to learn, otherwise

reflections on experience cover a very wide field. At thesame time, we need to be mindful of things we’velearned that we didn’t expect. We are also strengthen-ing our monitoring and evaluation system. We’d beenputting more effort into initial assessment of grantsand less into finding out what had actually happened.We’re trying to right this balance. We’re asking pro-gramme staff to write a ‘summation memo’ thatreviews what was learned in a partnership, and we’relooking at instituting quarterly ‘learning cycle’ meet-ings that review what has been learned in BvLF as awhole.

A number of organizational issues are still beingworked out. We are clarifying the reflective task ofprogramme staff who were previously mainly involvedin prospecting, establishing and guiding partnerships.How much and what kind of reflection is required andby what criteria do we assess this reflection? We areestablishing what sort of evidence we want differentpartnerships to be able to produce. This may vary fromthe engaging anecdote to rigorous analysis of speciallycollected data. This of course depends on whom wewant to approach with the evidence, and what wewant to convince them about. It is also related to ask-ing partners to make the move from primarilydescriptive reporting to a more analytical approach.

Finally, programmes, publishing and advocacy havevery different timescales. Field partnerships may growslowly for years, publications may be on an 18-monthtimeline, and advocacy opportunities may come andgo within a month or a week. Meshing these activitiesmeans being able to work at these different speedssimultaneously. It is important to guide the flow ofknowledge internally, to define new mutual account-abilities between programmes and advocacy. When itcomes to advocacy, concrete learning is not simplynice to have, but indispensable.

Unless our organizations learn, and apply what theylearn, we will only be charities. We will be funnellingour funds into efforts that will do good, but we will notbe able to improve the quality of those efforts nor willwe be able to use our experience to effect greaterchange. Ultimately, BvLF is based on a hypothesis: thatinvestment in early childhood gives a much higherpayoff, individually and on a societal level, than in-vestment in later age groups. The value of hypothesesis that they can be tested and refined. But this canhappen only if there is learning, reflection and adap-tation. This is what learning is about for us, and weexpect to be at it as long as we exist as a foundation. @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsWho is ‘we’? Devising an explicit learning agenda


BvLF has never been abean-counting foundationwhose primary concern isthat outcomes conformperfectly to plans. Thus Idon’t think that partnershave been motivated tohide the blemishes.

p 41focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizations


They have to describe predetermined results againstwhich they are funded and judged. To portray a senseof humility about their possible impact on complexsocial processes and a curiosity about whichapproaches may work, to openly pose questions aboutwhat may or may not be achieved, would guaranteeimmediate loss of funding unless they were aresearch institute. In any effort to become more ‘self-conscious’, ‘centred’ and open to its own ‘emer-gence’, development/donor organizations swimagainst the powerful tide of a world view thatdemands plans, systems, clear indicators andquantifiable measurements that leave little room todiscover what was not planned or to see processes asthey emerge.

This tide operates internally as well as externally andSNV is not immune. This article will describe how westruggle (and swing) on the learning spectrum of-fered in the guest editors’ article and attempt toexplore the reasons why we continue to try. I will startfrom our internal swings and steps and work out-wards towards our relationships with clients andother development/donor organizations.

Before I consider how learning takes place withinSNV, I would like to describe just three aspects of the

struggle that one has to contend with when it comesto learning.

Di÷culties in learningDifferent understandings of what learning isFirst, we understand learning differently. Views thatlean towards the ‘self-conscious, centred, open toemergence’ end of the spectrum compete with thosethat tend more towards sharing information, bestpractices and training in the use of new models andtools.

It takes time to shift deeply rooted perspectives. Werecently completed a blended action learning pilotthat started with no content topics or fixed curricu-lum. Sixty participants working in 10 ‘learning sets’had to learn to pose and refine questions about dilem-mas or issues in their practice. They worked throughto essential questions around which their behav-ioural change and self-awareness needs would bedefined and addressed. This was a major mountain toclimb. It was only in month six that the first partici-pant announced: ‘I finally get what this programmemeans by learning – it totally depends on me andhow I see the world . . .’ The same struggle took placeamong the ten coaches working with the learningsets. At the end of the 14-month pilot there were stilldifferences in how the coaches defined learning andhow this expressed itself in their approach to theirlearning sets.

Influence of project thinkingSecond, as an organization, our project implementa-tion roots leave deep marks and a few addictions eventhough we have changed our ‘spots’ and no longer de-sign and implement field projects. Some of our keyinternal systems still reflect project thinking; ouradvisers are still largely technical experts who arelearning to work in a more facilitative and reflectivemanner with their clients. We are a fast-acting orga-nization with a love of planning. The pressure to showresults (and rightly so) tends to be interpreted at thelevel of action and activity rather than effect. A viewof ourselves as experts still informs our practice inspite of our genuine commitment to seeing clients asequal partners in a search for joint responses toparticular development issues.

The expert view means that we do not have a naturalquestioning approach but rather one that starts witha hypothesis about the solution (usually proposed byus) and then plans on this basis. It also encourages usto see the issues we address as ‘apart’ from us, thereby

Swimming againstthe tide Naa-aku Acquaye Baddoo

Thinking about where to start, I am struck by one sentence in theopening piece by Allan Kaplan and Jenny Hyatt: ‘For some donors,learning appears to be outweighed by self belief.’ Here lies one of the first challenges a donor or donor-funded organization has to confront if it takes learning seriously. Most developmentorganizations, be they donors or recipients, exist and survivebecause they can project self-belief.

Naa-aku AcquayeBaddoo is SeniorPolicy Adviser – HRDevelopment &Learning at SNV. [email protected]

ABOUT SNV

SNV is a Netherlands-based, international development organization thatprovides advisory services and capacity-building to nearly 1,800 localorganizations in 26 developing countries to support their fight againstpoverty. The teams of national and international experts who work withthese organizations combine thematic expertise with skills inorganizational development, partnership building and institutionalstrengthening. Most of SNV’s funding comes from the Netherlands’Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See www.snvworld.org

p 42

closing off opportunities to negotiate meaning aboutthese issues on an equal footing with clients and part-ners.

Given this inequality, our practice is less likely to leadto situations where generative learning (‘learningthat enhances our capacity to create, rather thanlearning for reinforcement of ex-pectation’) takes place in a dynamicand contextually responsive way.The space for serious reflection andself-conscious choice-making be-comes limited. Clients do not assertthe need for this either, becausetheir own world view and experi-ence lead them to accept us asexperts. Where practitioners at-tempt to stimulate it, they find thatit takes time that is often not seen as valuable. Designing learningprocesses (not necessarily pro-grammes) that challenge and shiftthese patterns on both sides re-quires a combination of innovation, tenacity, a senseof timing and a good dash of serendipity.

Divergence and convergenceThirdly, SNV has a unique capacity development prac-tice: combining technical expertise in a particularsector or theme with organizational and inter-organizational change facilitation. This means thatin a specific geographical area, SNV advisers workwith a group of organizations (NGO, government, pri-vate) around specific development issues. The aim isto help key local organizations and networks to ad-dress the issues practically, while they also clarifytheir roles in relation to each other and individuallydevelop the self-consciousness, agency and centred-ness needed to sustain their effective contribution tolocal development processes beyond interaction withSNV. In short, we expect our clients to become thesort of learning organization described in this article.

We discuss this definition of our practice endlessly.Since a new strategy marked a departure from ourproject past six years ago, there has been a pattern ofdivergence and convergence around the question ofwhat the essence of our practice is. Every now andthen, we stop and do what we call consolidation. In adivergence phase, there is a wonderful sense of free-dom with lots of experiment and innovation inresponse to unique local situations.

In converging, we often miss an important step incollective learning (creating and negotiating newmeaning by reflecting together on what is emergingfrom the divergence phase). We jump to listing boxesof similar-sounding words and giving umbrella la-bels to provide a sense of order. In this setting, it isdifficult to clarify and name a ‘conscious’ framework.

It is easy to reflect and criticize like this but there arereal design challenges: how do you design and main-tain such a process over time with 900 advisers and150 managers spread over 31 countries and 4 conti-nents? I have come to accept that anyone interested ininfluencing the learning culture at SNV has to workwith this duality all the time, sometimes even work-ing within the ‘boxes’ in order to negotiate a way outof them.

These challenges form a backdrop to my views onwhere SNV stands in relation to the guest editors’concept of a learning organization.

What is our conscious framework?So what is the ‘conscious’ framework that guides ourapproach to practice and learning? To call such aframework ‘conscious’ at an organizational level,there needs to be a degree of collective understandingabout what we mean, and such congruence betweena philosophical framework and our practice andcorporate choices does not yet exist at SNV.

However, there are interesting movements in this di-rection all the time. For example, there are at least tendifferent ‘virtual’ discussions involving practition-ers in the field and policy-making staff on differentaspects of our practice. These discussions are fairlyfree-flowing and often radical in nature and have thepower to shape important choices at corporate level.For example, one of them is looking at the essence ofour practice and what this means for practitioners(change paradigm, core elements, value choices inworking with clients, dilemmas, implications forworking with other donors, etc). Another is looking atthe concept of leadership and agency in developmentprocesses and what this means for the way ourpractitioners work with local leaders.

Another internal movement is beginning to call forgreater congruence between what we preach to ourclients and local partners and the systems we workwith internally. The degree to which we can claim tohave a conscious framework that informs practicedepends on the extent to which we are able to makethese different movements connect to each other and

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsSwimming against the tide


In converging, we oftenmiss an important step in collective learning. Wejump to listing boxes ofsimilar-sounding wordsand giving umbrellalabels to provide a senseof order. In this setting, itis di÷cult to clarify andname a ‘conscious’framework.

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come to some consensus about the basic paradigm (ofchange, learning, development) from which we work.In the absence of this I cannot describe a consciousframework but rather a number of different frame-works which take turns to occupy the centre of ourthinking. This sounds chaotic but it isn’t really,because whole web managementsystems provide a sense of stabil-ity and prevent clashes betweendifferent frameworks or worldviews. We avoid the conflict thatcould lead to learning by believingin the objectivity of our manage-ment and measurement systems.

Who are we accountable to? Are we willing to place learningfrom the field at the centre of the organization? Who are we ac-countable to? How does this affectour attitude to risk and failure? Isthere space for generative learningat SNV?

This part is really difficult. In our relationship withorganizations and networks in the field, the balanceof power is heavily in our favour. We select our clients.They do not pay for our services and support. Most ofthe organizations and networks we work with cannotafford to pay for the services we provide. When wemake proposals for funding to our main donor, theDutch foreign ministry, there is no direct negotia-tion with our client constituency, although theproposals are on their behalf.

On the other hand, the demands made by our donorsare influenced by their constituents, the Dutch tax-paying public. We make commitments in returnfor funding and these are translated into indicatorsthat form the basis of monitoring and evaluation sys-tems. These systems then drive the questions we askabout our practice and the information we gather.The stage is set for ‘learning for reinforcement ofexpectations’. The system demands that learningefforts are directed towards ‘best practice to meet our commitments’.

However, there is space for generative learning inSNV; it just doesn’t exist in the mainstream – not yet.Mistakes are allowed, advisers and teams do haveroom to try different things and abandon them ifthey do not work. But we do not work systematicallywith mistakes or failed experiments. None of the casestudies we publish are about things that didn’t work.

I have never heard about a meeting or workshop toreflect on something that didn’t work – internally orwith clients. We do not yet have the confidence toopenly embrace failure – but which developmentorganization does?

The learning space in SNVSo what are the features of the ‘learning space’ inSNV? (By learning spaces I do not mean the regulartraining and learning programmes that exist toimprove knowledge and competence of individualsand teams.) Learning is seen largely as an activity sep-arate from daily practice and primarily involving anindividual.

I say largely because different views exist alongsidethis predominant one. This means that learningspaces tend to be set aside from the process and prac-tice of our daily work. It is difficult to identify spacefor learning in our approach with clients, or in ourinternal meetings, reporting styles and formats,performance reviews and evaluations, yet differentkinds of ‘separate spaces’ abound.

Again, this is not consistent throughout the organi-zation. There are teams where learning spaces arefiercely protected and others where it is difficult totake even a few hours to reflect with colleagues, suchis the pressure to act. One team in East Africa takes awhole week out every few months to look critically attheir practice; team reflection days are becomingmore institutionalized; in West Africa and Albania,two innovative leadership learning programmesinvolved SNV advisers jointly reflecting with localcivil society and public sector leaders about the lead-ership dimensions of different development issuesthey faced. In the Balkan region they are piloting alearning process involving open dialogues arounddilemmas or tensions in our practice.

In these examples, people learn with each other. Theycome to new meanings and insights jointly created byquestioning and negotiating, and they adopt andwork with these meanings (at least for a while). This ispossible because there is trust and openness in theirrelationships with each other. It takes time to developand cannot easily be replicated on a large scale. @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsSwimming against the tide


Mistakes are allowed,advisers and teams dohave room to try differentthings and abandonthem if they do not work.But we do not worksystematically withmistakes or failedexperiments. None of thecase studies we publishare about things thatdidn’t work.

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The Carpathian Foundation shares many character-istics with community foundations, such as a strongattachment to communities living in a clearly de-fined geographical area, but the difference is that theCarpathian region is huge (161,000 square kilome-ters, with a population of 16 million) and thesecommunities live in five different countries. Otherinternational organizations’ experiences in Centraland Eastern Europe, such as those of the Environ-mental Partnership, are valuable, but again a keydifference is that they are covering entire countriesor centred around one issue.

The entire short history of the Carpathian Founda-tion can thus be characterized as a permanent,multi-faceted and mutual learning process. Over thelast ten years, this has resulted in an organizationthat has been able to adapt to the radically changingenvironment while retaining its main purpose andmission. In other words, we have invented our ownwheels.

Developing organizational self-consciousnessThe mainspring of this process was a strong belief in the Foundation’s mission and a consciousness thatthe organization, through its grantmaking and

programmatic activity, plays a key institutional rolein this culturally and ethnically mixed region on themargin of Europe.

Another key component of organizational self-consciousnesses is the values that guide and orientthe organization. These have crystallized in the pastyears during a series of dialogues and interactionsbetween key stakeholders: the local communities,and the Foundation’s board and staff and donors.These have led to the formulation of guiding princi-ples, such as recognition that cultural, ethnic andnatural values are a prime asset of the Carpathian re-gion and a vehicle for local development; belief thatcommunities develop best through principles of self-help; and recognition that strong civil societies areintegral to economically and socially healthy com-munities.

These principles are supported by some practicalelements and internal procedures. The CarpathianFoundation grants committee, for example, com-prising the five Country Directors and the ExecutiveDirector, makes decisions on small grants, which is agood way to learn from each other and to learn fromthe ‘field’.

Beside its grantmaking activity, the Carpathian Foun-dation has developed some operational programmes,such as RomaNet and the Integrated Rural Com-munity Development and Best Practice of LocalGovernments programmes, which provide opportu-nities for local communities to learn from each otherand, at the same time, for the staff to understandbetter the environment in which they work.

What have we learned?What are the main lessons and the critical issues thatwe have derived from this experience? First, the mostimportant prerequisite for any intervention is tounderstand the environment and socio-economiccontext in which the intervention takes place. Oth-erwise, even the best-intentioned of interventionswill either only scratch the surface or fail altogether.We must avoid the mistake of the boy scout whoinsisted on helping a blind old lady to cross the street, though she did not want to.

Secondly, understanding the socio-cultural contextin which the organization works must go beyondsimply knowing facts and figures. The learningprocess has two equally important phases: the cogni-tive one, which is about the perceptible elements ofthe reality, and the substantive one, which is about



Inventing the wheel

Sándor Köles wasDirector of theCarpathianFoundation from 1994to 2005. [email protected]

THE CARPATHIAN FOUNDATION

Created in 1994, the Carpathian Foundation promotes good relations,social stability, and economic progress in the bordering regions of Hungary,Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. It does so by providing financialand technical assistance to projects which will result in tangible benefits tocommunities on both sides of national borders and improve the quality oflife of people in the cities and small towns of the Carpathian Mountains.See www.carpathianfoundation.org

Created in 1994, the Carpathian Foundation’s primary mission is to promote good-neighbourliness through cross-border and inter-ethnic cooperation in the Carpathian region of Eastern Europe,covering the border areas of Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakiaand Ukraine. As a foundation, it is a pioneer in this work. Theimpetus behind it is the belief that supporting democracy, economicdevelopment, and cross-border and interethnic cooperation at local and regional level is a cornerstone of a stable and democraticEurope. When it began life, the Carpathian Foundation (like everynewly created organization) looked for existing and adaptablemodels for its activity. These were not easy to find.

Sándor Köles



communities’ behaviour, aspirations, symbols, etc,which are usually hidden. If there is no balance be-tween the two parts of the learning process, we willmisunderstand the working environment.

Thirdly, organizations never learn. It’s the peoplewho comprise the organization (board and staff) wholearn, and the key questions are how these individu-als are motivated to learn and share learning; howindividuals’ knowledge is built into organizationalknowledge and collective memory; what the organi-zation does with this knowledge; and, last but notleast, what the practical process is for accumulatingthis knowledge and learning lessons.

There is a story of a railwayman whose main task wasclicking train wheels with his hammer, who retiredafter 40 years’ service. At the reception organized bythe company in his honour, he said, ‘Thank you thiswonderful event. I have only one question, please.Tell me, why did I have to click the wheels for 40years?’ The company had no answer, but in a founda-tion or development organization it is crucial thateach individual knows ‘who we are, what we aredoing, and why’.

Finally, difficulties sometimes arise in respect of anorganization’s world view (values, purpose, etc) whenavailable resources become scantier, either becausedonors shift their strategies and the organization nolonger fits or when other donors with differentpriorities and preferences appear on the financialhorizon. In the case of a ‘non-learning’ organization,the survival reflexes win over values and mission,while a learning organization will find a way to strikethe right balance between its mission and the changein resource provision. The first is the strategy for sur-vival; the second is the strategy for sustainability.

As far as the guest editors’ question ‘why be a learningorganization?’ is concerned, I can give a short answer:a learning organization can make a deeper impactand can generate long-term processes. @

The very origins of Scat lie in learning from the com-munities it was set up to serve. It was formed in 1984as an intermediary for Norwegian donors wantingto focus on para-legal defence work in Black commu-nities. Yet the communities themselves wanted notjust advice offices but amenities that supported civicmovements. So, over time, many of the officesbecame community centres – meeting places foractivists and providers of services and space.

Learning from the LDAsScat has supported many of these centres for manyyears, so a learning environment has been createdthrough trust and the responsiveness of Scat to localcommunities. It continues to work very closely withits grantees through its fieldwork programme, andthrough frequent training events and seminars.Fieldworkers spend a large part of their time visitingcommunities and Scat’s mission is constantly chal-

Listening to localcommunities Greg Erasmus

The Social Change Assistance Trust (Scat) provides support to LocalDevelopment Agencies (LDAs) in rural communities in South Africa.This article reflects on various aspects of Scat that shape its identityas a learning organization, which in turn have enabled it to navigatethe changing social, economic and political environment andremain true to its mission of supporting poor rural communitiesseeking to improve their quality of life. These include measures that have been implemented to enhance its capacity to listen to the LDAs it supports; to actively engage with its donors and shareits experiences with the LDAs; and to interpret and proactivelyrespond to signals in the external environment.

SOCIAL CHANGE ASSISTANCE TRUST (SCAT)

Scat was established in 1984 as an intermediary grantmaker to community-based organizations operating in the areas of human rights and communitydevelopment, with the funds coming from Norwegian donors. In 1992, astrategic decision was made to focus exclusively on rural communities.Scat now supports Local Development Agencies (LDAs) in 60 ruralcommunities across five provinces both through grantmaking and throughfieldwork and training programmes. Since 2003, the percentage of localdonor income has increased from 4 per cent to a projected 43 per cent in2006. Local donor funds comprise national and provincial government,corporate donors and local institutional donor agencies such as theUmsobomvu Youth Fund.See www.scat.org.za

Greg Erasmus isformer ExecutiveDirector and a currentmember of the Boardof Trustees of [email protected]

CarpathianMountains

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lenged by this close engagement. This ability to workclosely with rural communities is the key to how Scat operates and why it has been able to adapt andsurvive.

In 2001, for example, LDAs asked Scat to help them toaddress the HIV/AIDS pandemic in their comm-unities. Scat wasn’t keen ontheme-based funding but recog-nized the LDAs’ need and decidedthat it did fall within its mission. Ittherefore introduced an HIV/AIDSprogramme which was based onthe same principles of grantmak-ing and capacity-building as itscore programme. It remains one ofScat’s most successfully funded projects and hasrecently been supported financially by the NationalDepartment of Health.

Learning about the LDAsScat views a good flow of information from its field-work to all levels of the organization, includingtrustees, as essential. The quality of fieldworker en-gagement with the LDAs is influenced by severalfactors: the status of the relationship between Scatand the LDA at that time; the level of competency ofthe fieldworker and the quality of the relationshipwith the LDA; and the organizational status of theLDA itself. These things change, and the changesinfluence the perception of Scat by an LDA and viceversa. The process of feedback within Scat is designedto ensure that all these various facets are consideredwhen evaluating the relationship with the LDA.

Like many organizations, Scat has a formal system ofwritten reports and meetings to share information. Italso encourages the informal sharing of information.Fieldworkers and trustees often exchange informa-tion by email about particular LDAs, and the mostpowerful insights are often based on observationsmade by fieldworkers in the course of their visits. Scathas developed a culture wherein fieldworkers openlyshare their personal concerns and observations. Thisis achieved through mechanisms like peer supportgroups and a style of reporting that enables theseissues to surface.

Understanding the value of good informationScat benefits in a number of ways from the insightthat all staff and trustees have into the work of theorganization with LDAs. It supports strategic deci-sion-making if all the required information is

available to everyone involved. It also supports the de-cisions that are required from time to time aboutScat’s relationship with an LDA. The relevant infor-mation is shared with all staff and trustees as they areall affected by the decision in one way or another.

The sharing of information is also crucial to anothervery significant part of the organization’s strategy –managing its public persona and stakeholder rela-tionships. Unless all parts of the organization are upto date with the status of the relationship with eachcommunity, it could easily lead to problems. Staffand trustees are very active in various spheres of pub-lic life and insight into Scat’s work helps them dealwith any issues or questions that may arise about itsrelationship with a particular community.

The same applies to funding and other stakeholderrelationships. If staff and trustees all have a good in-sight into the current state of affairs, they can useopportunities for meeting donors to make an im-pression, which could lead to a partnership. Throughour engagement with the external environment wehave become more conscious of the types of informa-tion that need to be presented to the outside world ifthe true value of Scat’s beliefs, strategy and impactare to be effectively communicated.

Responding to changeAs Hyatt and Kaplan suggest, an organization’s abil-ity to respond to changed circumstances is intimatelyrelated to the clarity of its mission. Scat’s ability toadapt to changes in the environment originates fromits clear organizational purpose and its ability to re-main focused on that purpose. This does not meanthat the validity of that purpose and the beliefs un-derlying it are not frequently questioned andchallenged, but by keeping its mission in sight, Scathas managed to respond consistently and coherentlyto the changing needs of its grantees and to chal-lenges in the external environment.

It’s worth pointing out that changes in the externalenvironment in South Africa have been more radicalthan in many other places. For the first ten years of itsexistence, Scat had to work with a hostile govern-ment. This has changed completely and governmentinstitutions are now much more approachable. Wehave had to learn how to work in this new context –especially as the situation varies greatly fromprovince to province.

One frequently hears from South African NGOs howhard it is to raise funds from government and private

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsListening to local communities


Unless all parts of theorganization are up todate with the status of the relationship with each community, it couldeasily lead to problems.

p 47

businesses. Too often this results in NGOs not evenseriously trying to do so. Scat has learned that oneneeds to actively engage with stakeholders in order tounderstand the points of difference. This is particu-larly true with our decision to engage governmentand corporate donors.

One of the biggest challengesfaced by Scat post 1994 was the per-ception that intermediary donorswere no longer required becausefunds would now be transferred di-rectly to local communities. Thiswas particularly true of localSouth African donors and someforeign donor agencies with localoffices. Scat is sometimes ham-strung by donors who look to it as aclassic intermediary donor andwho initially question the value ofits intensive fieldwork with LDAs.We, however, believe this is ourvery strength and we manage toconvince most enlightened donorsof this.

We have also recognized that we need to get out of the‘intermediary donor’ box and profile ourselves inrelation to our value and impact. This has opened upa number of opportunities to engage with donorsand other stakeholders who were previously not onthe radar.

Compromising with donorsAs the guest editors suggest, there are situations inwhich an intermediary grantmaker like Scat has tocompromise with its back donors. However, this neednot be as negative as their article suggests if the com-promises are tactical rather than strategic. In thiscase, the organization does not inadvertently suffer‘mission drift’ but seeks to gain something specificfrom the engagement. Compromises are also notunique to intermediary grantmakers: the samewould hold true for any NGO or CBO that deals withdonors. Compromise is in fact the basis upon whichthe new South Africa is built, and Scat has adoptedthe approach of engagement and negotiation ratherthan avoidance.

Working with donors who do not necessarily alignwith one’s approach may sometimes bring unex-pected benefits. Scat recently decided to implement aprogramme that involved working with local munic-ipalities in rural areas, rather than LDAs. In the

process we realized that we were learning about thechallenges faced by rural municipalities in respond-ing to the demands made by local communities. Thisprovided the fieldworkers with valuable insights intohow to assist the LDAs to engage more effectively withthe local municipality for access to services. Theagreement with the donor is fixed term, but theinsights gained will be with us for much longer.

Involving the donors in learningScat and a number of other NGOs are collaborating ina learning process with two donor agencies throughwhich we aim to jointly develop a mutually accept-able understanding of the concepts of ‘impact’,‘monitoring’ and ‘learning’. The donors involved aresubjecting themselves to the same process of evalua-tion and engagement as their local partners and areopen to revealing the weaknesses of their own learn-ing and monitoring systems. The aim is to teach allthe parties how to more effectively understand andrespond to each other’s requirements.

Encouraging grantee learningThis article has talked mostly about how Scat learnsrather than how it encourages its grantees to learn,but grantees are in fact given a lot of space to identifytheir own needs and how to meet them. They puttogether the ‘argument’ for obtaining funds for train-ing and development support, rather than Scatdetermining what may be useful for them.

As part of our capacity-building programme for LDAs,we have a Fundraising Incentive Scheme to encour-age local fundraising in rural communities. Thisprogramme has provided a valuable learning oppor-tunity for the LDAs, but it has also shown Scat that itcould adapt its grantmaking model by guaranteeingless core funding and providing greater incentives.This has allowed Scat to reduce core funding to anumber of organizations that have successfullyraised funds locally.

Dealing with donors in a confident and assertive wayis one of the pillars of our skills development withLDAs and our own fundraising activities are a sourceof learning that we share with them. As an interme-diary donor, lessons in fundraising are often atwo-way exchange. In several instances, LDAs havesuccessfully raised funds from donors with whom wehave had no success, and we are happy to learn fromtheir experience and share it with other LDAs. @

focus on seeing differently? donors as learning organizationsListening to local communities


Scat is sometimeshamstrung by donors who look to it as a classicintermediary donor andwho initially question the value of its intensivefieldwork with LDAs. We, however, believe thisis our very strength andwe manage to convincemost enlightened donorsof this.

OXFAM GB

Oxfam GB is a development, relief and campaigning organization thatworks with others to find lasting solutions to poverty and suffering aroundthe world. It believes that everyone is entitled to a life of dignity andopportunity where resources and power are distributed more equally andwhere everyone’s rights to a livelihood, basic services, protection fromviolence, and a say in their future are upheld. Oxfam GB is a member ofOxfam International, a confederation of 12 organizations working togetherwith over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries.See www.oxfam.org.uk

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In our experience, strong beliefs and commitmentcan be both positive and negative in effect. Becausethe essence of the organization is value-driven – theway we see the world and the way we act in it – thevalues are not something applied ‘out there’ but in-ternalized. ‘They are so strong that you couldn’tdefeat them,’ says Chief Executive Barbara Stocking.

Are strong beliefs good for learning?But is this entirely a good thing for learning, whichdemands that the organization is open at all levels: in-dividually, as groups of staff, and organizationallythrough the way decisions are made, priorities areagreed, and the processes and practices that governhow the business is run are adopted?

It’s a mixed picture. Our role in the world involvescampaigning, with passion, focus and a well-arguedcase, for things to change, and for people with power

to take responsibility for addressing the many fail-ures to recognize and realize poor people’s rights.This means believing that this is the right thing to doand arguing against other positions. If we adopt theseattitudes, then it’s very hard to listen to what otherssay and recognize what they bring to us. It can pre-vent us from hearing fundamental challenges to ourway of thinking and doing, or dismissing them be-cause they don’t harmonize with our views.

And some of these challenges can go deep. What, forexample, to make of the way China has brought manypeople out of poverty? Does this present us with an ex-ample that contradicts our beliefs about how changeshould happen, and if so, what are the implicationsfor our ways of working?

We have to be very aware of the potential for ‘groupthink’, the building up of a layer of interpretation ofevents and messages that reinforces and protects theorganization from difficult or contradictory infor-mation. Our capacity to be aware depends upon ourorganizational culture, and there are some key fea-tures that we’ve come to realize help or hinder beingopen to experience.

Incentives for learning . . .There are incentives and disincentives for learning inOxfam’s organizational culture. The key incentive isthe belief that if we learn to do something better,then we will improve our performance and this willin turn lead to the outcomes we desire, such as pro-tecting civilians in crises, or changing doublestandards in world trade rules. This desire is foundeverywhere among staff and stems from the fact thatthis is a highly motivated group of people. Put an-other way, the willingness and effort necessary forlearning are ‘hard wired’ into the organizationthrough its people.

The rewards for this attitude differ within the orga-nization: at country level, the experience of making adifference is much closer and more real than it iswhen working at one remove. Seeing, for example,how providing separate facilities for women in Kash-mir camps enables them to wash out their sanitaryclothing really brings home how much that mattersto someone’s dignity in such conditions. But noteveryone in the organization has such immediate,direct experiences.

. . . and disincentivesAnd there are disincentives, such as the pressure ofwork, which prevents people from taking time and



Being the changewe want to see?Belinda Duff

Oxfam’s mission, to work with others to overcome poverty andsuffering, is a huge and ambitious one, and any organization thatsets its purpose out so clearly must start from a strong value base and culture that sustains that purpose. What effect do suchstrong beliefs and passionate commitment to a cause have onorganizational culture and space for learning? Our conviction that we’re doing the right thing can make it hard for us to heardiscordant views, while the pressure of running a big organizationthat is so much in the public eye means that opportunities forlearning are at a premium and sometimes neglected. On the otherside, we’re acutely aware that success depends on our taking such opportunities. It can be a di÷cult balance to strike.

Belinda Duff is Headof ProgrammeLearning &Accountability, Oxfam GB. [email protected]

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space to reflect, to bring in different perspectives andto set up processes for learning with partners andwith poor people themselves. We know people learnfrom these kinds of events, but we do not always givethem priority over implementing projects or doingthe necessary paperwork to support reporting todonors. And so time for learning iscrowded out.

There are mixed messages too:how far do we practise what wepreach when we say that we wantstaff to take risks, make mistakes,and learn from them? Reportingbad news takes courage and peoplerespect this. However, sometimesthe organization’s ‘self talk’ tendsto adopt a ‘not good enough’ toneand the response to mistakes canbe very critical. This is the otherside of the coin when the missionis so demanding.

Working with partnersMuch of our work is done with and through others –NGOs, community-based organizations, coalitionsand allies. Working effectively with partners imple-menting programmes means knowing when andhow to support their development and encouragethem to go further and when to challenge or con-front poor practice. It means being aware of theinterplay of different kinds of knowledge in that re-lationship and the power that goes with knowledge.Using knowledge wisely requires skilled, experiencedpractitioners. As in any large organization, in Oxfamthere are variable levels of understanding, skill andperformance at this level.

Processes, procedures and working habitsOxfam raises and spends approximately £280 milliona year in pursuing its aims. Keeping track of expendi-ture and of the 6,000 staff working around the world,sometimes in disaster situations, and maintainingthe information flows needed to govern a large orga-nization necessarily takes time, and systems toprocess and review the data. Unless a close eye is kepton the number of reporting requirements, formatsand links between the different systems, staff can beswamped by the demands of reporting, thus takingaway precious time for implementation. The stress onsystems and procedures both establishes what peoplehabitually do when they come to work and subtly

reinforces messages about the purpose of that work.We have to take care not to over-regulate, and to getthe balance right between doing things effectivelyand doing the right things.

A global organization: our accountability toothersOxfam ran a campaign called Be That Change, whichreminded all of us working for Oxfam that changereally starts with us: how we see ourselves, how we seeothers, and what our role in the world is. Nowhere isthe debate about ourselves and our relationshipswith others more alive than in our current work onaccountability in the organization. Because engage-ment with issues like poverty and suffering cannot bea superficial one, we understand there’s a lot we don’tknow, and the only way to find out is to listen toothers. We can come to a deeper understanding ofimpact and how we act in the world to bring aboutchange in policies, practices, ideas and beliefs only ifwe see what others see in us, and reflect on what thechallenge they are posing might ask us to changeabout ourselves.

Key in this for Oxfam is listening to poor people andpartners. This is easier to talk about than to do. Ourchange philosophy is to fundamentally shift power inthe world, so we’ve got to be prepared to apply that toourselves. And yet we know that making ourselvesmore accountable to others is a sensitive, riskyprocess, partly because it is difficult to be open andadmit mistakes in an environment where there is agreat deal of suspicion about institutions and loss offaith in many of them, and partly because poweraffects how we relate to and empower poor people tohold us to account. We need to do this in ways that donot disempower and do not produce tokenistic orsuperficial engagement.

At times, because of Oxfam’s history and our ‘criticalvoice’, heard in the way we talk among ourselves aswell as directed externally in lobbying and arguingfor change, work on being held to account by othersseems an obvious and natural step for us to take. Atother times, it feels like we are learning new ways ofperceiving and behaving. Chief Executive BarbaraStocking’s view is that we need to go much further inlearning to be open. ‘It won’t destroy us. Although it’svery hard to be passionate and at the same time holdan enquiring mind, we can do it.’ Synthesizing dif-ferent experiences and perspectives is essential forintegrating learning into Oxfam. @



Chief Executive BarbaraStocking’s view is that weneed to go much further in learning to be open. ‘It won’t destroy us.Although it’s very hard to be passionate and atthe same time hold anenquiring mind, we can do it.’

p 50

In 2002 the newly appointed CEO Sam Palmisano un-dertook a company-wide exercise to redefine IBM’scorporate values. For 72 hours the company partici-pated in an online ‘Values Jam’ accessible to 320,000employees. The inputs were analysed using a ‘jama-lyzer’ and the revised corporate values confirmed as:� dedication to every client’s success;� innovation that matters to our clients and to the

world;� trust and responsibility in all our relationships.

Reshaping IBM’s corporate philanthropyIn the early 1990s IBM reshaped its global operations,and our philanthropy programme was reshaped too.While the programme contributed IBM’s technology,it also made very substantial cash donations. As suchit did not fully deliver IBM’s core strengths and value.Also, since the programme was based primarily onfunding projects rather than strategic programmes, itwas difficult to measure the impact, and the processesfor learning about where we should focus resourceswere inadequate.

The corporate philanthropy programme was trans-formed around three key principles:� engaging with a broad group of stakeholders

inside and outside the business to determinepriorities and provide relevant marketintelligence;

� integrating IBM’s core capabilities in research,information technology and businessdevelopment into all programmes;

� a new approach to partnership.

We started by focusing on our core capabilities in tech-nology and business development and asked ourstakeholders which of their priorities could poten-tially be met from these. This helped to redefine thecore mission of our philanthropy around the inter-section of the company’s capabilities with criticalsocietal needs defined by government agencies, NGOs,our clients, business partners and employees. Thesewere also relevant to our business development.

We then developed a set of strategic programmes toaddress some of the major issues identified. Oneexample is the Reinventing Education programme,where we have more than 30 partnerships around theworld working with education administrations andteachers on their role in transforming teaching andlearning for the knowledge economy.

All our programmes now have innovative technologyand management systems at their core. The WorldCommunity Grid applies the latest technology for pro-viding computing power ‘on demand’ to contribute tomajor scientific research programmes that will helpdeliver new medical therapies, and better under-standing of issues like climate change and cropdevelopment. Voice recognition technology helpschildren and adults develop literacy skills vital tooperate in the knowledge economy. Open Sourcesolutions are supporting rapid response followingmajor disasters like the Asian Tsunami.

Historically, corporate philanthropy was a one-wayprocess, with only intangible benefits to companiesin terms of positive image and ‘feeling good’. IBM’smodel of partnership goes beyond this, generatingspecific benefit to the company while also primarilyserving social needs. For each programme IBM engagesresearchers and consultants alongside the commu-nity partner to shape a solution, which often involvestechnological breakthrough. The philanthropy pro-gramme can thus act as a beta test-bed which deliversnew insights which then feed into further develop-ments. This model of partnership is based on engagedlearning: IBM and the partner collaborate to developan appropriate solution from which both learn andbenefit. The partner is no longer a passive recipient but an active collaborator. Arguably this delivers asolution that more directly matches their need.

A kind of symbiosis ensues. While bringing newresources to communities, IBM learns about develop-ments across a range of needs. These are fed into thecompany’s knowledge base and in turn allow it tomaintain its vitality in the marketplace. @



Corporatephilanthropy at ibmCelia Moore

As an innovation company, IBM’s success over its 100-year historyhas been dependent on constant change. Development of the ITindustry may appear evolutionary, as a series of developmentsbased on new scientific discoveries were integrated into products. In fact development has been marked by significant transformationsthat were not predicted. To manage change of this nature and speed,IBM has had to be a learning organization – clear about its centralmission and responsive to changes in its environment.

INNOVATION AND LEARNING

Celia Moore isManager, CorporateCommunity Relations,EMEA, IBM UK. [email protected]



I base my views on a recent Keystone survey on theways civil society organizations and donors learnfrom and account to the intended beneficiaries oftheir work.1 The survey of 155 donors shows a markeddiscrepancy between donors’ appreciation of thevalue of accountability to – and learning from –beneficiaries and their practices.

On the appreciation side:� 90 per cent of donors felt that it was ‘essential’

or ‘important’ to have the views of beneficiariesin understanding grantee performance.

� 83 per cent agreed with the statement that ‘morereadily available information from the ultimatebeneficiaries’ perspective would help [me] makebetter strategic grant decisions’.

� 94 per cent felt that it would be ‘extremelyvaluable’ or ‘valuable’ to receive reports fromgrantees that offer quality feedback frombeneficiaries about the work of their grantees.

But when it comes to walking the talk:� 17 per cent routinely require grantees to

report on beneficiaries’ views on day-to-dayperformance, and only 20 per cent routinelyrequire grantees to report on beneficiaries’ viewsof their contributions to long-term developmentimpact.

� 14 per cent routinely provide grantees withresources to develop the capabilities required toelicit honest beneficiary feedback. (By way ofcontrast, 6 per cent of civil society organizationsindicated that they routinely receive donorsupport for this. With a few exceptions of thistype, the civil society organization version of the survey tended to be in line with the donorversion.)

� 23 per cent routinely discuss beneficiaryfeedback with grantees.

The open comments on the survey suggest somepossible explanations for the disparity. One theme

that emerged is expressed clearly in this quote:‘While we are keenly interested in understanding the de-

cision-making and motivations of intended beneficiaries

in all of our work, this doesn’t necessarily mean that our

grantees (or their sub-grantees) need to be directly

accountable to the beneficiaries. Rather, they always

need to be accountable to demonstrate real impact

against the social objectives they are trying to meet. In

some cases, the best way to do this would be direct

accountability to beneficiaries; in other cases, direct

accountability to other stakeholders may serve as a more

effective and efficient means of operating (presuming, of

course, that the views of the beneficiaries are being

effectively gathered and presented to the other stake-

holders).’

It bears noting that it is a fairly straightforwardexercise to specify those situations where directbeneficiary feedback can be most useful.

One grantmaker broached another theme: ‘My approach is based on supporting good leadership. I

proceed on the basis that really good leaders will always

be consulting with their beneficiaries and working in

partnership with them. Unless they do so, they will not

succeed. If there were cheap and effective methods of

getting feedback from beneficiaries, I am certain that

this would be valuable but as a rule I am quite happy to

rely on the reports of the charities that I support . . . I am

very interested in methods of determining the effective-

ness of charities and the impact that they make. The

views of beneficiaries are obviously critical in determin-

ing effectiveness and impact. On the other hand, I am not

keen to see large sums of money spent on measuring

impact by directly seeking the views of individual bene-

ficiaries and, as a rule, I am willing to take the risk of

being misled by the charities which I support.’

But perhaps the most commonly shared open com-ment reflected a sense that this was an area thatneeded fresh attention. When provided with a list ofpossible new services to address the gap, every sug-gestion garnered ‘interest’ or ‘high interest’ at over 80 per cent.

Overall, the survey gives me some encouragementthat we have an opportunity to close the gap betweenthe rhetoric and the reality around donor learningover the months and years ahead. @

Not learning frombeneficiaries David Bonbright

David Bonbright isChief Executive ofKeystone. [email protected]

1 The surveys are open for onemore week from the time ofwriting, so the findings maychange slightly. The final reportcan be found atwww.keystonereporting.org

At the risk of being contradicted by other articles on this issue’stheme, I want to highlight one critically important way that donorsare not learning – from the intended beneficiaries of the work thatthey support.

p 52

One trustee of a major international foundation toldme that board meetings were ‘wonderful, educa-tional opportunities – like watching Nova’ [PBS’sacclaimed science television series]. A vice presidentfor programs of another large international grant-maker with a particularly high-powered board toldme: ‘Our board meetings frequently veer from the is-sues that relate directly to the foundation intointernational issues that board members simplyenjoy debating.’

In both cases, the boards probably learned a lot, butthe learning did not lead to more informed decisions.These boards accessed precious little data that theycould use to assess the relative performance of thefoundation, or, for that matter, of the CEO.

While it is essential that foundation staff and boardmembers be knowledgeable about their areas of

focus, it is easy to see how the pur-suit of learning can become anexercise in self-indulgence. Withfew external forces influencingthem, foundations must exerciseconsiderable discipline to committo learning about their own per-formance by asking the simplequestion, how are we doing?

No easy answersPart of the problem is that thequestion turns out not to be sosimply answered. In theory, mostfoundation leaders agree that

they’d like to know the positive impact they createdrelative to the resources they expended. It’s a simpleratio. If only we could arrive at a quantification ofimpact created. But that’s impossible for most foun-dations. Individual grants often represent a fractionof a project or grantee budget and are made acrossinitiatives and programmes for which there is nocommon unit of social impact measurement. At theoverwhelming number of grantmaking foundations(perhaps all of them) it is not possible to calculateoverall foundation impact, or social return on invest-ment, or whatever we choose to call it.

Moreover, in the absence of other measures, admin-istrative expense, which is easily quantified andcompared, threatens to become the de facto universalperformance measure. I have seen many board mem-bers, frustrated by the staff’s inability to provide dataon foundation performance, seize on the tangibleand insist on the lowest possible administrative costratio. This can be damaging, leading to the elimina-tion of valuable foundation work simply because nodata exists to demonstrate what the administrativespending is achieving.

Embracing indicatorsSo, what to do? If precise and irrefutable evidence ofimpact relative to resources expended does not exist,should we give up altogether?

That would surely be the easiest path, because it freesstaff and board from tough questions about whetherthey might be able to do better. Fortunately, manyfoundations are embracing what we at the Center forEffective Philanthropy (CEP) refer to as ‘indicators ofeffectiveness’. While we cannot easily measure im-pact, we can develop indicators that will show howlikely foundations are to be effective. These are drawnfrom a variety of comparative data sources, fromgrantee and expert perceptions to data on board func-tioning to more traditional evaluation data. Takentogether, these comparative indicators allow foun-dations to understand their relative strengths andweaknesses. One tool we have developed, the GranteePerception Report® (GPR), draws on the perspectivesof grantees to help foundations understand how theyare perceived on myriad dimensions – from helpful-ness of non-monetary assistance to responsiveness toimpact on their fields or communities of funding –compared to other foundations.

The GPR is a powerful tool because it ensures confi-dentiality of individual grantee responses. Mostimportantly, it places grantee perceptions in a



Beyond learningfor learning’s sakePhil Buchanan

Foundation staff and board members should embrace learning not for its own sake but as a means towards improved performanceand greater positive impact. It is easy to endorse the rhetoric of thelearning organization, particularly when the learning is focused on what grantees might do differently or on the nuances of theissues foundations seek to address. It’s much tougher, though, toturn the lens inward and focus on learning how the foundation’sperformance compares to others and what it can do differently, and better. As a result, this kind of learning too often simply doesn’t happen.

Phil Buchanan isExecutive Director ofCEP. [email protected]

THE CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE

PHILANTHROPY

CEP is a non-profit organization that provides comparative data to enable higher-performingfoundations. For more information,visit www.effectivephilanthropy.organd click on Publications. Inparticular, see Indicators ofEffectiveness: Understanding andimproving foundation performance(2002) and Listening to Grantees:What nonprofits value in theirfoundation funders (2004).

p 53

comparative context. Grantees tend to rate the foun-dations that fund them towards the high end of anabsolute scale, no matter how cynical or critical theymay be about foundations in general. As a result,comparative data is essential if a foundation is to un-derstand that, on some dimensions, a rating of 5 on a1–7 scale is actually quite low.

Learning and changingSince 2003, when we launched theGPR, more than 100 foundationshave commissioned the report,including seven of the largest tenUS foundations. The results aretypically carefully considered byboards, senior staff and pro-gramme staff, and have frequentlyled to significant change. Changesinclude refocusing grantmakingpriorities, clarifying goals, over-hauling selection and reportingprocesses, or replacing key staff. Many have beenquite public about what they learned and what theyare doing about it. Fifteen foundations – includingthe David and Lucile Packard, Charles Stewart Mott,McKnight, and George Gund Foundations – have evenmade public some or all of the GPR itself.1

The GPR has led foundations to reconsider assump-tions, address weaknesses and build on strengths.Elizabeth Smith, CEO of Hyams Foundation in Boston– to choose one of many possible examples – sentgrantees a four-page letter describing what the Foun-dation learned from the GPR and what it planned todo about it. In one passage, she wrote:

‘Our grantees believe that Hyams has a deep understand-

ing of the populations they serve. While they also rated

the Foundation’s impact on their own organizations very

highly, Hyams’ rating on this criterion was slightly below

the median. Based on the survey, we learned that Hyams

staff provide more assistance “beyond the grant check”

than other foundations in the CEP data set. Assisting

grantees in accessing other sources of funding was seen

as especially valuable. Based in part on this feedback, we

are interacting even more with our grantees by making

fewer and larger multi-year grants in several of our

program strategy areas.’ 2

This kind of thoughtful change may not generateheadlines, but it leads to more productive relation-ships between foundations and their grantees – andto stronger grantee organizations that are better po-sitioned to achieve the impact their funders are

seeking. Already, many foundations are repeatingthe process to gauge improvement, and a numberhave made significant strides in the eyes of theirgrantees.

New understandingsIt isn’t easy. We have seen the shock that can accom-pany a realization that, for example, a foundationthat prided itself on the assistance it offers tograntees is providing assistance that is rated muchless positively than that provided by other founda-tions. We have learned that foundations need strongleadership, thoughtful sequencing of responses, andtime to act on results. But we have been inspired byhow many foundations have risen to the challenge.

Most people want to know how they are doing, andthen they want to figure out how to improve based onthat knowledge. There are bumps along the road butnearly all foundations that receive GPRs eventuallymake changes as a result – 97 per cent according to arecent survey.

Our data sets have also shed light on hotly debatedissues and challenged some widely held assumptions.It turns out, for example, that there are three keydimensions grantees value in their foundation fun-ders more than size or type of funding: interactionswith foundation staff; clarity of communication offoundation goals and strategies; and foundationexpertise and external orientation. These are the bestpredictors of grantee satisfaction with their funders– and of good ratings for foundation impact. The factthat we have now surveyed more than 20,000 granteeorganizations allows us to really understand thegrantee viewpoint from more than just an anecdotalperspective.

No one data set, tool or organization will offer all theanswers. But there is reason to be optimistic thatfoundations are increasingly seeing their learningefforts as opportunities to improve, drawing on com-parative data to put their results in perspective, andmaking real changes. Learning for its own sake iswonderful, but that’s what schools and universitiesare for. Foundation staff and board members have aresponsibility to use their learning to inform im-provement in performance. @



1 In the interest of fulldisclosure, it should be notedthat Packard and Mott are grantfunders of CEP – with annuallevels of support of $75,000 and$50,000, respectively.

2 www.hyamsfoundation.org

Learning for its own sake is wonderful, butthat’s what schools and universities are for.Foundation staff andboard members have a responsibility to use their learning toinform improvement in performance.

p 54

Understanding and purposeJH The pieces show some important differences in emphasis about the purpose of learning. Forexample, Phil Buchanan raises (and dismisses)‘learning for its own sake’ and Luc Tayart talks about‘learning being instrumental – a means to an end’.This makes me wonder if it is helpful to clarify howwe understand learning – it is not a neutral word. For me, learning is an ongoing process of reflection(engaging and open and unpressured) on experiencethat enables a shift in understanding (of self, other,situation, context) that affects approach (which maymean no shift as a conscious choice). Also, I believelearning is going on all the time – whether we chooseto call it that or not.

AK Well, either it is going on all the time, or not – by which I mean that, while it is indeed a naturalprocess, it is often dormant, lazy, disengaged. Thetragedy is that reflection often runs along routinepaths that don’t take it anywhere new, but justrepeat, confirm, consolidate. So while, if it ishappening at all, it must indeed be ongoing andcontinuous, we can still strengthen its functioning.

JH Yet not if it is viewed as ‘instrumental’ and a‘means to an end’ as this is machine-like languagesuggesting using tools or models (means) that lead to realizable ‘ends’ rather than a perpetual process of engagement and movement. Hence, learning isnot easy, as Peter Laugharn suggests: ‘We were naivein our assumption that if we declared we were all for learning, it would naturally occur.’

AK Yes, this is the point. If learning is aninstrumental means to an end then it implies thatwe can choose when we learn and when we don’t,which means we can engage in many activitieswithout learning (simultaneously), which seems tome to imply that we can engage without thinking –except at specified times and according to certain

mechanized procedures – which is not learning at allbut something else, something ‘robot-like’ (havingan ‘off-on’ switch) rather than human.

JH In these senses, one of the arts of learning is tosurface the processes that are ongoing and makethem more conscious. This is not likely to happen, asa number of contributors comment, when so muchvalue is placed on ‘doing’ at the expense of learning.As Naa-aku Acquaye Baddoo says, it is hard to ‘swimagainst the powerful tide of world view’ and to leave‘room to discover what was not planned or seeprocesses as they emerge’.

AK We need a thinking which is alive, constantly and rabidly curious, a relentless paying-of-attention,if we are to approximate learning, not a time-boundand regulated procedure!

JH So to surface ongoing learning requires thepotential for meaningful conversation, which takesme to the next reflection.

Relationship between values and learningJH I am struck by how five contributors talk aboutthe centrality of values to learning and yet indifferent ways. For Sándor Köles and AleksandraVesic, organizational dialogue on values enables‘guiding principles’ of practice to emerge. BelindaDuff suggests, however, that conviction on valuesmakes it hard to ‘hear the discordant’ or (quotingBarbara Stocking) that ‘It’s very hard to be passionateand at the same time hold an enquiring mind’. In part this may be a reflection of the differentsize/complexity of the organizations and yet it alsoreflects organizational culture. For me, the essenceof passion is an enquiring mind – that magneticattraction to something that makes you wish toexplore all of its streets and alleyways and to see yourchange in understanding emerge from that deeperlevel of engagement with that which fires you. Sure,donors may have an agenda as Peter Laugharn andBelinda Duff state . . . but how open is that agenda to learning from elsewhere?

AK The comment about it being hard to bepassionate and at the same time hold an enquiringmind struck me too. It seems to me that beingpassionate without holding an enquiring mindmight well be the basis of fundamentalism – whichputs me in mind of Jung’s statement that ‘fanaticismis overcompensation for doubt’. Certainly convictionon values makes it hard to hear the discordant, butthis very struggle is surely what we – as development



Continuing theconversationJenny Hyatt and Allan Kaplan

Rather than responding to particular points or differences in viewfrom the contributors, we decided to continue the conversation . . .

A FINAL WORD FROM THE GUEST EDITORS

p 55

people – bring to stagnant situations. If we cannot dothis, as part of our ongoing practice anyway, then weare in danger of closing social spaces down ratherthan opening them up!

Setting the agendaJH Most contributors talk about where learning isdrawn from in setting the agenda. At root, we need to explore how donors manage the relationship and(potential) tension between their social vision andthat of their grantees and beneficiaries. Here thereappear to be donors who ‘work with grantees in alearning community’ (Andrés Thompson), whichresonates with how Greg Erasmus describes Scat,contrasting with those who feel they holdresponsibility for ‘the theory of change’ (Luc Tayart).

From a grantee perspective, Lizzie Zobel comments,it is clear that donors (particularly corporates) ‘wantownership . . . and not what everybody else is doing’.They are concerned with ‘the most innovative andcreative’, without recognizing that innovation andcreativity occur within and through process and notjust by looking for something different. Relationshipbetween donor and grantee is central to learning. As many donors are quite removed from ‘the field’, it is more problematic to create relationships basedon trust and connection. And where there is strongand direct field contact, the connections between‘field and centre’ tend to be quite fragile.

AK This last comment of yours is very much part ofthe problematic terrain around learning. My ownexperience of consulting to larger organizationsbears this out. There is a gap between those whowork in the field and are learning all the time(because they’re constantly and immediately facedwith the reality) and those who gravitate towards the centre and the heights, who are generally inpositions far removed from the field and yet inpositions which hold so much more power (andironically, therefore, have so much more to lose, so much to defend and hold on to).

Connection to context JH And yet several contributors talk about the needfor learning to be sited within, and drawn from agood reading of, context. This is beautifully capturedin Lizzie Zobel’s example of the book donor in thePhilippines who had never questioned whathappened to the books until they ‘realized that ifthere’s no reading readiness, you’re just donatingpaper’. Again, this places a significant weight on who

donors are learning from – particularly the extent to which their grantees have good relationships andsymbiotic learning with ‘beneficiaries’. As PeterLaugharn writes, ‘Unless our organizations learn and apply learning we will only be charities.’

AK And the word ‘charity’ implies one-way trafficand a particular power relationship. Engagementwith context, however, asks more of donors.

The obsession with doingJH And it is here that the obsession with doing, withactivity, pushes learning off agendas – which isdeeply paradoxical. Without learning, organizationsare relying on assumptions about their practice andthose they relate to. This raises the issue of the extentto which donors create organizational cultures thatencourage the questioning of assumptions. Forexample, Greg Erasmus talks of how working withmunicipalities changed their understanding of localgovernment just as Lizzie Zobel talks about needingto become ‘listening partners’ with the Departmentof Education. In her case, that appears to arise from‘a self-questioning’ culture that looks at ‘ourmethods, our limitations and our results’. And yet, as Naa-aku Acquaye Baddoo asks, how do largecomplex organizations build cultures of generativelearning? For me this depends on how donors create an appropriate balance between providingfield staff with discretion to learn and accounting for performance.

AK In the end, the point for me here is that it allcomes down to individual (therefore human)attitude rather than mechanisms. Or, putting this differently, that it depends on culture(organizational and individual) rather thanprocedure. Or, putting it still differently, we have to –and we can – inculcate a learning attitude, ratherthan depend on a time-bound ‘event’. Learningrequires ‘immersion in thinking’ rather than aninstrument or system. And we can do this in ourorganizations – but then learning becomes an end(perhaps one among others) rather than simply ameans.

JH So where does this leave us? Phil Buchanan writes‘it is not possible to calculate overall foundationimpact or social return on investment or whateverwe choose to call it’. Perhaps too much effort goesinto making more and more robust measurementtools rather than enabling organizations to workwith perpetual uncertainty and surfacing ongoinglearning? @



Documents

Seeing Differently - Donors as Learning Organisations - Alliance 2006