Making the Most of a Funder Update: Strategies to Keep Funders Engaged in Your Work
September 16th, 2022
With information at your fingertips, and distractions only a click away, it is more important than ever to understand the “best” ways to get and hold people’s attention. At the Jim Joseph Foundation, we receive compelling and diverse grantee-partner updates that grab our attention, pull us into their work and impact, openly share challenges and learnings and leave us excited about their future plans. After recently receiving a grantee-partner update – and reflecting on how helpful it was – we realized that there are many other types of updates, utilizing entirely different approaches, that are equally as effective.
Whether via email or Zoom, in large peer funder groups or smaller ones, delivered weekly or quarterly, there is no single “right” way for these updates to occur. There are nuanced differences in each approach that best serve the grantee-partner’s unique circumstances and goals. In fact, as we compiled the examples below, we realized there were even more effective forms of updates than we had initially thought, which is a testament to the professionalism of the partners with whom we work. We think there is value in both grantees and funders considering these various forms — which can all work well depending on the specific organization, its stage of growth, content shared, list of funders and goals of the update itself. We view grantee-partner updates (and our sharing the thought process behind them here) as part of our approach to relational grantmaking, which is both premised on and leads to open and honest communications.
As noted, there are many organizations in our portfolio who share effective updates with their funders; we asked six grantee-partners who each utilize a different form and style to share insights as to why their specific choices work best for them.
Aaron Saxe is a senior program officer at the Jim Joseph Foundation.