Director’s report A mid-point view

When we produced our strategic plan for 2006–12 we committed to a mid-point review of our progress in meeting the aims and objectives we had set ourselves. As part of this review we have also tried to assess the Foundation’s impact and effectiveness.

Since 2006 our grant-making has totalled over £73m. As planned, the annual level has now reached £20m. We also aimed to balance carefully managed Special Initiatives with more responsive Open Grants schemes. Since 2006 we have launched six Special Initiatives, and we have another two in the pipeline. These now account for 40 per cent of annual expenditure, in line with our 50 per cent target.

We undertook the review by commissioning two independent organisations. BOP Consulting analysed data from our management information systems, and reviewed reports and evaluations, most of which were externally produced. They ran a series of focus groups with stakeholders, commentators and critical friends. They had structured discussions with our trustees, advisors and staff.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a US-based not-for-profit body, anonymously surveyed all our current grantees using their Grantee Perception Report (GPR). The GPR is a standardised survey that enables comparison of our results with those of hundreds of other foundations with whom CEP has worked.

We are only the third foundation in the UK to use the GPR. Taking part was in line with our beliefs: the value of innovation; giving more weight to user-voice; action-research; and learning from experience. These approaches characterise much of our grant-making, but we felt they were equally important to apply to trying to improve our own practice. We are grateful to the 250 grantees who responded. More information about the GPR is given on pages 6 and 7.

Our impact

The key findings of the BOP review are that we are making good progress against the three core aims of our strategic plan (enabling people to experience the arts, developing people’s education and learning, and integrating young people who are at a time of transition) and we are also progressing in the separate plan for our work in India.

The review found that the ‘outcomes-based’ approach we implemented in 2007 has resulted in more rigorous grant-making and reporting processes. Specifically, 75 per cent of Open Grants are meeting the jointly agreed objectives. The main reasons why the other 25 per cent fail to meet their objectives are an unrealistic expectation at the outset about the time and resources required to develop and deliver the funded activity, and the challenges of engaging with the very marginalised groups with whom PHF is often concerned. We learn from this and expect to see a proportion of our grants failing to meet their objectives, given our aim to fund innovation.

We seek to influence change and have an impact at three levels: individual/community, organisation and, at the highest level, policy and practice. The same grant can impact at different levels. About 80 per cent by value of our grants have an impact at individual/community level and 20 per cent at an organisational level. Having an impact at the level of national policy/ practice is more difficult to gauge, in terms of attribution, and it is early days in terms of our Special Initiatives as the impact at this level is often felt in the medium to longer term. The review found that we achieved significant impact at this level through our Special Initiatives Musical Futures and the Reading and Libraries Challenge Fund. The impact of the Refugee and Asylum Seeker Fund was less significant.

In addition to core aims, the review looked at progress against our supporting aims. Our fourth aim is advancing through research the understanding of the relationships between the arts, education and learning, and social change.

Whilst we have not commissioned much standalone research, there is a strong research component built into the scoping phase of each initiative. The review showed us that a great deal of learning takes place in each of our programme areas, and that there is more that we can do to capture and spread this, to translate our understanding into clearer guidance, and to inform our decisions on future aims. The fifth supporting aim, building the capacity of individuals and organisations, lies at the heart of a number our Special Initiatives, particularly in the arts programme. However we know there is more that we can do, directly or in partnership with others, to build the capacity of organisations, particularly to sustain, or even build, the scale of their work. The final strategic aim focuses on how PHF runs itself, which is to be an exemplary foundation. We are not complacent, but stakeholders see the Foundation as an effective grant-maker and as a catalyst for change, and that our ways of working are rigorous and imaginative.

Communications

During the year we launched a replacement online application system and provided much clearer guidance about the information which we ask organisations to provide at the first and second stages of applications. As planned, this has improved the quality of the applications we receive, and has reduced the number of applications which clearly fall outside our areas of interest. We have also developed the design and content of our website, based on analysis of the patterns of activity on our old website, and after obtaining opinions from users of the old site.

Public benefit

All our grant-making programmes and the work we ourselves undertake to support the grants we make are directly linked to our mission. This is to maximise opportunities for individuals and communities to realise their potential and to experience and enjoy a better quality of life. In particular we are concerned with children and young people. This Yearbook contains

information about the impact of our Special Initiatives and the activity carried out from the grants we have made. We supplement this with more detailed information on our website. We believe that this demonstrates the benefit to the public of our work.

Staff growth

During the year we benefitted hugely from two temporary programme heads, Julie Lomax and Denise Mellion, who covered for absences in our Arts and Education and Learning programmes. We welcomed to the staff Liz Cadogan, Carrie Supple and Tracy Sacks, who work on our UK programmes, and Skalzang Youdon, who joined as Administrator to help set up our new office in India. We said goodbye to Barbra Mazur and wish her well in her new role as Grants Manager at the John Ellerman Foundation. This year we set up an internship programme, in order to meet our own needs but also because we know that the jobs market is tough for recent graduates. Recruited via the Graduate Talent Pool website, our interns each worked for four months as an assistant on our communications team. Reflecting our values, we are pleased when the people we select are also from a widening-participation background. Our thanks to our first two interns, Jarek Zaba and Mary Mbure, whom we wish well in their future careers. We remain grateful for the work done by our advisors. Our new advisors, Bridgette Anderson, Maureen McGinn and Jennifer Izekor, are making important contributions to the ongoing development and delivery of our Social Justice and Education and Learning programmes. This year we held our first Advisors’ Conference, which allowed all our advisors and staff to learn from each other, particularly on the cross-programme themes of innovation, participation and evaluating impact.

Robert Dufton Director