By making public the evaluation evidence and findings, foundations make major contribution to knowledge and to foundations’ accountability to the public.

Foundations need to show that they add value by generating social benefits beyond the mere financial power of their grants. One way to add value is through advancing the state of knowledge and practices in the foundation sector. They can do this by systematically evaluating their work and disseminating key information on what they have learned about their activities’ results, be they success stories or unsuccessful ones.

The most common form of evaluation reporting is the final project report. Apart from a single report, some foundations use other means of communicating which include newsletters, bulletins, fact sheets, visual displays, oral presentations, holding seminars, press conferences, etc.

Through their websites, European foundations are communicating lessons learned from their evaluation processes more broadly than in the past.

Examples

• The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Lloyds TSB Foundation for England and Wales, Bernard van Leer Foundation, The Health Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation, among others, are foundations which usually publish evaluation reports on their websites.

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