Reimagining Reporting, Part 1: Insights From the Field

In philanthropic relationships, we talk a lot about power dynamics, and there’s perhaps no moment where that becomes more visible than during the reporting process. Traditionally, grantees are required to justify their work, impact, and often even their existence on terms set entirely by the institutions that hold decision-making power over their funding. Funders decide what counts as success, and grantees must tailor their stories to match those expectations.

Over the past five years, we at CEP have chronicled improvements to these dynamics in the reporting process. Specifically, in a report released in late 2021, CEP found that more than three-quarters of 247 foundation respondents  who were repeat Grantee Perception Report users reported making changes to reduce the burden on grantees. A 2023 study comparing grantee experiences with 61 funders both before and after the pandemic found that grantees, too, reported a change: in aggregate, nonprofits reported spending fewer hours on reporting and evaluation than they were before the pandemic — dropping from eight hours for a single funder’s requirements to six hours.

Tellingly, a third-party evaluation of CEP’s own work revealed that more than two-thirds of GPR users report that they’ve made changes to their processes based on their assessment results.

Beyond the hours, we know that reporting isn’t just about the time and effort required, but the opportunity for learning and reflection. In our work with individual funders, we spend more time discussing mechanisms of reporting that encourage shared learning and relationship-building than in the past.

In our recent research on how funders and nonprofits listen to communities, we find that over 90 percent of funders leverage the expertise of funded nonprofits to shape their work (though the report also reveals that there are continued opportunities for funders to support nonprofits to collect feedback from the people and communities they serve). This is also clearly a topic of interest in the broader field — it’s rare these days to attend a conference that doesn’t include at least one session about how to center mutual learning between funders and grantees in reporting processes.

Given the importance of this milestone in a philanthropic relationship and the growing interest in reporting, we set out to learn more about reporting and evaluation practices in the field. In partnership with Rachel Kimber at Full Circle Impact Solutions and Blanch Vance at the Grove Foundation we surveyed grantmaking staff that have participated in programming about reporting processes, including alternative reporting, seeking to explore questions like:

• What are the primary goals of reporting, including alternative reporting?
• How are funders incorporating grantees’ feedback in their reporting process, and do grantees reap the rewards of their labor in the form of learnings?
• How common is alternative reporting, and why and when do funders decide that alternative reporting may be a good fit for their organizations?

While this sample is not fully representative of the field, what we heard from 96 grantmaking institutions¹ provides some preliminary information about funders’ current priorities and practices in their reporting process and offers insights about how funders can take action to build on the recent improvements.

Finding One: Funders Prioritize Internal Learning over Relationship-Building

One of the primary tensions in our findings arises from the motivations with which funders design reporting processes: We found that funders most often see reporting as a way to inform their future grantmaking decisions and report to internal stakeholders, like senior leadership, boards, or trustees.

Perhaps in line with those goals, only a small minority of funders collect grantee feedback on their reporting processes, and fewer than half share what they learn from reports with their grantees.

In our work with funders and nonprofit organizations, one of the most common requests we hear is to streamline reporting processes and make them more relevant and adaptable to the work funded by their grant. To create these relevant, streamlined, and adaptable reporting processes, it’s crucial that funders first understand what form of reporting is best suited for the context and work of each grantee by soliciting and responding to their feedback. In other words: ask grantees what kind of reporting would be helpful to them.

Taking it a step further, some funders are beginning to experiment with co-design approaches, where grantees help shape feedback loops from the start. This creates processes that better align with the work grantees are doing in their communities and the constraints of that work.

Finding Two: Alternative Reporting Aims to Reduce Grantee Burden While Balancing Funder Burden

In our sample, just over two-thirds of those surveyed accept at least one form of alternative reporting as part of their process. We see that funders most often implement these practices to reduce grantee burden and give grantees more power to adapt reporting to their own context. Of those who accept alternative reports, funders most commonly report accepting oral reporting from at least some of their grantees (91 percent), followed by grantees’ annual reports (71 percent) and grant reports written for other funders (69 percent).

Interestingly, the least commonly accepted forms of alternative reports — pre-recorded video or audio reports, group learning calls with multiple grantees, and funder-generated reports based on their own due diligence of publicly available data — tend to shift the burden from grantees to funders, indicating a tension between funders’ goals and practices.

Reimagining reporting also means making it accessible across language, disability, and organizational size. A variety of approaches may be required to meet a variety of partner needs. When asked about barriers to implementing alternative reporting, about half of respondents indicate lack of staff capacity or training to design and evaluate alternative reports.

Surprisingly, only half of respondents report using any type of digital technology like note-taking or transcription tools, pre-filled reporting templates, or other tools (that could include AI) that could help summarize submitted reports. For alternative reporting to work for both grantees and funders, it’s clear from this review that funders must resource the shift with dedicated staff time, technology tools, and board support.

Finding Three: Alternative Reporting Isn’t for Everyone

As we’ve seen in the past few years, reporting processes will continue to evolve — whether it is in response to grantees’ needs, funders’ shifting priorities, or the broader context in which our field operates.

For funders who are not currently accepting any forms of alternative reporting, we see a desire to prioritize integrating reporting more deeply with their own learning and evaluation process (60 percent) and strengthen the connection between reporting and internal strategy decisions (47 percent). There’s some interest — from 40 percent of these funders — to incorporate more oral or conversational reporting and more grantee-generated materials, such as videos and social media content.

Finally, to support funders in adopting or expanding alternative reporting, there’s a clear need for practical resources. Nearly three-quarters of funders ask for databases of alternative reporting formats and strategies for integrating these reports into existing learning process, suggesting most funders are looking to adapt their current processes instead of designing a new process that is solely focused on grantee priorities. 

CEP will continue to collect data about the reporting and evaluation practices of funders and the experiences of grantees with these practices, and commits to sharing our insights with the field whenever possible. We also encourage funders to share their insights, experiences, and learnings from their own reporting practices with one another and with the field. In a follow-up to this post, Rachel Kimber and Blanch Vance offer further insights and reactions to CEP’s findings.

Alice Mei is a senior manager on the assessment and advisory services team at CEP. Nina Groleger is a senior analyst on the assessment and advisory services team at CEP.