MyAdvisor™ - Foundation Performance

Any organization looking to pursue best practices in all aspects of management must regularly assess its performance, but this exercise is especially crucial for foundations, charities, and other philanthropic groups.

Whether foundations are disbursing funds or granting non-financial assistance, they must evaluate themselves — and sometimes be evaluated by outside groups, like potential donors — for effectiveness and good governance.

A philanthropic organization, however, may contribute to its ways that go far beyond a simple accounting of monies disbursed. This makes assessing its performance and management an extremely complex and potentially contentious exercise.

You Need MyAdvisor - Foundation Performance if...

• Your charitable organization requires an objective way to immediately and repeatedly assess its performance
• You need to demonstrate how fairly and efficiently your foundation is managed
• You need to independently evaluate how well your organization is meeting its stated philanthropic goals
• You need to assess your charity’s performance in ways beyond financial contributions
• You need to achieve — and unequivocally demonstrate — greater transparency in your organization.
• As a donor, you need to evaluate a number of foundations and charities to determine the best fit
• Your require comparable and meaningful performance metrics, presented with clear, easy-to-understand and actionable conclusions
• It is in your charitable organization’s best interest to assess performance internally rather than hire outside consultants

MyAdvisor - Foundation Performance gives you immediate access to a powerful tool for assessing your foundation at a low price. You receive forms, guidelines, and reports, and you can use all of these valuable tools right away. Evaluation has never been this easy!

Criteria

Creating an independent, actionable process for assessing your charitable organization’s performance requires metrics that are meaningful, repeatable and aligned with strategic goals. Criteria must be flexible enough to evaluate the impact of a foundation’s endowments, and how fairly and efficiently it is managed.

Based, in part, on the groundbreaking work of Michael Porter at the Centre for Effective Philanthropy, My Advisor - Foundation Performance uses categories that represent common, key considerations for assessing the governance, business processes and overall results of a philanthropic organization. Using a standard form, the evaluator rates the foundation against a set of statements that best describe high-performing charitable organizations.

Working through the criteria sets, the tool evaluates how well the foundation is run, how effectively it manages its funds, how successfully it selects projects to fund, and whether it is making a tangible difference.

The tool identifies and assesses:

• Whether the Board of Directors has fully met the objectives of the sponsors and/or mandate of the Foundation;
• Whether the Board has issued timely and accurate financial reports that have been positively received by all key stakeholders;
• How diligently Board members have undertaken regular reviews and assessments of the operations of the foundation;
• How effectively the foundation has grown its endowment to keep pace with growing demands in the areas it supports;
• Whether the grants submitted — and those approved — are in high alignment with the foundation’s stated areas of focus
• The extent to which the foundation’s process for assessing and awarding grants includes knowledgeable external evaluators who have demonstrated a high level of commitment to a fair and effective review process;
• Whether the organization is proactive in seeking out potential applicants with the capability to meet its mandate;
• How highly foundation staff rate recruitment, training and remuneration procedures and express satisfaction with their treatment;
• How satisfied grantees are with the help they received, and whether they can provide evidence of the positive impact the foundation has had in their work;
• How effective the foundation has been in attracting additional funding;
• Whether the foundation is recognized as a major participant in its field of interest, through both grants and other efforts; and

How effectively grants awarded meet the foundation’s established goals and objectives, and the expectations of its principal sponsors.

MyAdvisor - Foundation Performance can be used for:

• Evaluating the foundation’s performance in multiple dimensions;
• Measuring the organization’s contribution to its chosen field, in both dollars and influence;
• Clearly, competently and confidently demonstrating good governance and day-to-day management; and
• Benchmarking a foundation’s performance against similar organizations.

Free downloads:

• Free Evaluation Form for Evaluating the Performance of a Foundation or Philanthropic Organization (pdf)
• Sample Foundation Performance Evaluation Report (pdf)
• CEP Report on Foundation Performance Metrics (pdf)

System Requirements: PC with Windows 2000 Operating system or later; 60MB of free disk space; minimum of 256MB RAM; Microsoft Excel; Administrator rights for installation.

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