MESI 2010: Many foundations do not use evaluation

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As mentioned in previous posts, Ricardo Millett was a keynote speaker at the 2010 MESI. During his talk, Millett shared that according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy, around 75% of foundations don’t use evaluation for their programs/processes. Additionally, the foundations that do use evaluation tend to expect it from those they fund – they don’t use it internally. The first point is pretty scary to me, the fact that many, many foundations are giving out millions – if not billions of dollars to programs and they are not requiring those programs to be evaluated. Without evaluation, one cannot know whether a program is even effective. Not only that, but then for many of the foundations that do require evaluation – they don’t do any of their own evaluation. They don’t look at their grantmaking and ask, is funding these programs really meeting our goals? This isn’t too surprising though when you consider that many foundations don’t have a strategy for their grantmaking – so how could one expect them to evaluate it if they don’t know what to even measure?