Organisational development – how can funders help?
In common with many funders, PHF is interested not only in funding projects and service delivery but also in supporting work that can help grantee organisations become stronger, more effective and have more impact. We recently convened a group of funders to share our different approaches to supporting organisational development in the organisations we fund. Colleagues from 12 funders joined PHF trustees and staff to try and answer the question: ‘How do we design effective organisational development support for grantees?’
For PHF the discussion was particularly timely. We are putting in place support for grantees in the Youth Fund and planning the Growth Fund, which will open later this year, to support the development of organisations working with young people. In doing so we are also learning from PHF’s Fitter for Purpose programme, which involved 28 grantee organisations from all the sectors we support. This involved consultancy support for each grantee in diagnosing their priority needs for organisational development, help with planning and implementing change and follow-up after six and 18 months.
We shared our learning from Fitter for Purpose at the funders’ workshop and are today publishing the full evaluation. We found that grantees all identified benefits from the programme and found their investment of time and effort to have been worthwhile. Time to focus on strategic issues and, particularly, the time and attention given to the scoping and diagnostic work, were particularly valued.
Grantees’ own capacity to engage with the consultants and the work was a key factor in the degree of success. This points to the importance of funders being flexible and paying careful attention to the timing of the support so that grantees are able to give it priority and maximise the benefit. This is most challenging for smaller organisations, who may need the funder to provide additional resources to help them implement change.