Basic Science Funders – Including Simons Foundation -  Ask, "How Do We Know if Our Giving is Working?"

Basic Science Funders – Including Simons Foundation -  Ask, "How Do We Know if Our Giving is Working?"

Generally speaking, foundations want to know what their grants are accomplishing, or whether they should be putting money somewhere else. This is understandable, to an extent.

But a lot of work—some of the most important and effective in the long term, in fact—doesn’t lend itself to frequent grantee reports packed with discrete deliverables and short-term metrics. That fuzziness can lead funders to either shrink from such work, or require grantees to run a gauntlet of requirements that don’t make much sense.  . .