An Independent Philanthropic Trust Helen’s Legacy to Victoria, Australia.

An Independent Philanthropic Trust

Helen’s Legacy to Victoria, Australia

TRUSTTRUST

Established in 1951

Initial corpus of £275,000 – current value $100 million

Grants of between $5-$7 million per year

Total grants to date of over $65 million

Support Victorian Charitable Institutions

Web address: www.hmstrust.org.au

TRUSTTRUST

PRIORITY AREAS

Aged Persons Care and Support

Arts, Culture and Heritage

Community Support

Disabled Care and Support

Employment and Vocational Training

Environment

Health and Medical Research

TRUSTTRUST

APPROACH TO GRANTMAKING

3 Levels of Support:

Respond to each formal application

Strategic applications

Proactive grants

TRUSTTRUST

GIFT RELATIONSHIP

Relationship along a continuum

ResponsiveStrategic

CHARITYCREATIVE

Manage EngageCollaborate

TRUSTTRUST

CATEGORIES OF FUNDING(Grantmaking Tango: Julie Unwin, Baring Foundation)

Meeting immediate need – gift giving

Fostering innovation and new approaches – shopping mode

Supporting organisational development

Working towards systemic change

Type of project informs what type of evaluation should be used

HMS Trust

Works across spectrum

Level of Trust involvement proportional to type of project

Gift-givingSystemic Change

LOWHIGH Portfolio of Grants – balance across the spectrum

Currently: 20% gift giving / charitable; 50% shopping mode / engaged; 30% systemic change/collaborations

Challenge for the Trust

Developing an evidence based approach to funding –

what works and how do you know?

Evaluation – for what purpose?

Trust perspective:

Trust: Mission and Purpose Sourcing and creating knowledge Building networks Making a difference

Grantee perspective:

Delivering service or program Developing internal knowledge Contributing to external knowledge and understanding Engaged in systemic change

What is an evidence based approach

to funding?

Internal Evaluations

Acquittal Reports

Site Visits

External Evaluations

External validation of project or program

Huge amount of literature and resources available

Trust’s responsibility:

Ask for, suggest, find most appropriate methodology Depends on type, scale and cost of project Used when

• Seeking support beyond the pilot

• Transferable – usefulness to others

• Build understanding about an issue – both Trust’s and Grantee’s

• Creating a coalition of interest

Model: Innovate – Evaluate – Disseminate

Innovate Fund innovation and new thinking Directly helping few – indirectly helping the many Replication Importance of shared knowledge, best practice etc

Evaluate Outcome focused Process Focused

Disseminate Example – Telstra Foundation

The Ian Potter Foundation – Australian (Professor Dorothy Scott, Chair, Child Protection, University of South Australia. Previously Executive Officer, Ian Potter Foundation)

PEW Charitable Trust – United States

Founded 1948 $3.8B US Assets $166M US Grantmaking budget 130 staff – 9 in planning and evaluation

Internal Planning and Evaluation Unit

Evaluations funded though grant budget Evaluation: management tool Evaluation: planning tool for Trust staff Evaluation: accountability tool for PEW Board


Benefits

Rigorous planning = tighter strategies with more feasible goals

Creation of ‘data rich’ culture = learning from work and improving

More effective investment = understand progress and make mid-course corrections

Bottom Line: Can’t know of impact if don’t evaluate


Approach

Integration of planning and evaluation

Culture of evidence-based decision making – evaluate to inform decisions

Strong leadership – CEO Board Support

Saying no is hard but necessary – evidence assists in this process

Annual planning cycle – creates need for data, culture where evidence matters


Questions to ask during planning

Does the strategy address the root causes of a well-defined

problem?

Is the goal clear, feasible and measurable?

Is the underlying logic sound?

Are the key assumptions and risks identified and addressed?

Are there reasonable milestones?

Are the scope and scale reasonable and commensurate with

resources?

Helen Macpherson Smith Trust

Evaluating Applications Use PEW planning questions - focus on Context

Context Importance of policy environment Multiple audiences

Resource it – the more $’s the better the evaluation

HMS Trust Tailor $’s to Trust’s strategic interest and investment in the

project Typically for larger projects Expensive – usually start at $25,000 Time consuming

Organisational Development

New and emerging area of support

Evaluation - tailor to meet grant expectations

Evaluation can be difficult

Organisational Development (cont’d)

Social Ventures Australia

Developed SVA Social Return Toolset Help non-profits and investors maximise, measure and

communicate social returns they generate Purpose: Tools:

• Triple P Framework

• Organisational Capacity Diagnostic

• Social Return on Investment Tool

www.socialventures.com.au

Working towards Systemic Change

What is the Theory of Social Change?

Who or what has to change to make a difference? How are these people and institutions reached?

Social change

Complex Involves working on several fronts to build constituencies and

pressures for change Embedding systemic reform very challenging Lisbeth Schorr’s book ‘Common Purpose: Strengthening

Families and Neighbourhoods to Rebuild America’


Lisbeth Schorr ?’s

Why have so many positively evaluated programs funded by philanthropy never been replicated?

Concludes: failure to bring about reform within the institutions and systems within which programs operate

“… history of efforts to replicate, sustain, and scale up…is dismal. The single most important reason…is the failure to understand the environment within which these programs operate…..the problems arise when the successful pilot program is to expand and thereby threatens the basic political and bureaucratic arrangements that he held sway over decades.”


Theory of Innovation – combination of characteristics (Creative Philanthropy, Helmut Anheier and Diana Leat)

Degree of uncertainty Knowledge Intensive Controversial Reaches over established boundaries Innovation and adoption of innovative ideas and practice

happens at the margins and not at the centre Innovation encouraged in situations and networks that

involve significant overlap among groups, cultures and perspectives


Fostering innovation of itself not sufficient

Ideas often fail to become accepted and implemented – failure of pilots

Foundations often fail to build on creativity to achieve innovations

Foundations need to address the how and the what Compounded by:

• Failure to understand the importance of a dissemination and marketing in getting new approaches adopted and embedded (promotions)

• Undervalue importance of relating to policy and policy-shapers and makers (influence)


Creative Philanthropy

“Creativity is making new combinations, seeing new links between existing elements, making up new mixes…”

“Foundations are critical boundary-spanners in modern society, sitting on the edge of an array of institutions, disciplines and professions”.

“Organisations exist in complex and constantly changing social, political, economic, legal and organisational environments that impinge on, constrain, subvert and support courses of action. Certainty is in short supply and workable social plans are usually those that provide a basis for departure rather than a blue print for action.”


Creative Philanthropy (cont’d)

Creative philanthropy/Social Change – involves using an array of grantmaking techniques

Change often occurs at a ‘tipping point’

Criteria for impact crosses all funding styles and intents

• Responding to grant applications

• Commissioning specific pieces of work

• Having a long term interest in the issue

Not-for-profit Government

Corporates

COLLABORATION – STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPCOLLABORATION – STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

Community


Case Study: Supported Housing

Access to affordable and appropriate housing for disabled people is currently under threat from:

Issues

Previous grants – Supported Housing:

HMS Trust response

How we would be evaluate this response?


Evaluation

Measuring impact derived from approach to management that equates management with measurement ie; organisations that are not capable of measuring their achievements are not managing resources carefully

Based on set of managerialist or rationalist assumptions – which may or may not work for business

Ill suited to real world complexity of social change – “Where qualities such as flexibility, serendipity, opportunism and compromise all play a part”


Bruce Sievers – Stanford Innovation Review – from Creative Philanthropy

“Measurable outcomes” seem to have become the new mantra in the non-profit world. …. The assumption seems to be that, if only we could get a stronger numerical hold on what happens as a result of non-profit activity….... we could do much better at solving some of the great social problems upon which we are so diligently working.

Let me suggest a heretical view: the fundamental business analogy is flawed…..In addition to the daunting (and ultimately unsolvable) complexities of scale, multi-variables, and causal chains, there is the underlying conceptual problem of imposing reductionist interpretations on social reality. If we look very hard, we soon see that the numbers aren’t wearing any clothes.”


Danger: New approach to identifying impact fetters the ability of grantmaking trusts to take risks and explore new ways of working

Who owns the evaluation?


Evaluation:

Descriptions of Success (Grantmaking Tango)

Evaluation – (Creative Philanthropy)

Things to Look Out For

Changemakers Australia

Project: Evaluating Social Change

Developing an approach to evaluating social change

projects

Project being undertaken by Associate Professor Patricia

Rogers, CIRCLE (Collaborative Institute for Research

Consulting and Learning in Evaluation) at RMIT and Leslie

Falkiner-Rose as part of a Masters project

www.changemakers.org.au

Foundation Performance

Centre for Effective Philanthropy – www.effectivephilanthropy.org

How well is the Trust or Foundation performing?

No universal measures of return for Foundations (unlike business)

Foundation impact can not reduced to a single number because of problems

Casuality Aggregation Timelines

Need to develop common ‘language of assessment’

Foundation Performance (cont’d)

CEP: focused on developing ‘Indicators of Effectiveness’

Tools include:

• Grantee Perception Report

• Comparative Board Report

• Staff Perception Report

• Operational Benchmarking Report

Foundation Performance (cont’d)

Foundation Effectiveness

(Phil Buchanon: CEP Executive Director – 5 Year Anniversary Celebration)

1. Specific Goals

2. A Strategy

3. Measurable Indicators of Effectiveness

4. Leadership

5. Engagement of Boards

An Independent Philanthropic Trust Helen’s Legacy to Victoria, Australia.

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