Evaluation Perspectives

Dean-Coffey, Jara

doi:10.1177/1035719x20926754

Cited by 1 publication

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“…This article builds from and extends the literature on philanthropic evaluation, detailing nuanced ways in which foundation leaders understand, conceptualise and make judgements about evaluation. These findings emphasise philanthropic leaders’ intrinsic understanding of evaluation as a future-focused instrument of change (Dean-Coffey, 2020), rather than a way of capturing past change. This highlights the need for increased evaluation and greater accountability in a philanthropic context, supported by foundation leaders’ identified motivations and values.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Performance measurement, evaluation and accountability in public philanthropic foundations

Williamson

Kingston

2021

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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Philanthropic foundations routinely evaluate and measure the performance of nonprofit organisations to which they distribute funds, as well as the programmes that are funded. Another aspect of philanthropic foundations’ evaluation processes, which receives comparatively little attention within academic or practitioner literature, concerns evaluations of grant applications. While the focus of philanthropic evaluation literature is mainly on ‘how evaluation is done’, the focus of this article is on ‘how evaluation is understood’. This article details perspectives from interviews with 28 managers and trustees of Public Ancillary Funds as part of a wider study on the accountability of foundations. These public foundations must fundraise from the public, and donations to them are deductible against the taxable income of the donor, resulting in a significant element of accountability to the public for their effectiveness and evaluation of the distribution of their funds. Four main themes emerged through the exploration of how evaluation is understood from the perspective of these senior foundation leaders: motivations, values, criteria and processes of evaluation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%