Gathering information to help us assess and adjust both our grantmaking strategies and internal policies and practices is a priority.
In addition to evaluating our grantmaking initiatives, we regularly assess and reflect on our work and progress overall. We also conduct a periodic confidential survey of our board and staff to capture and reflect on strengths and areas for improvement.
Annual Reviews
Each year we provide an Annual Review to Irvine’s Board of Directors to outline the work we support, our approach to grantmaking, where we allocate our resources, and demographic data related to Irvine’s staff and board. Until 2024, we called this document our Portfolio Review.
The Annual Review helps us understand and communicate how grantmaking, strategy development, talent management, and finance and investments come together to achieve our goals. It is a useful tool to inform and guide our decisions each year.
Years in Review
Our Year in Review was a snapshot of our work and progress we saw in our grantmaking and other areas, as well as including information on our staff and board diversity, and our financial reports and investment policies.
Our goal was transparency about who we are, what we fund, and what we had learned, and our final Year in Review was in 2019, when we shifted to sharing this information in our Portfolio Review.
Grantee Perception Reports
The Grantee Perception Report (GPR) is an important tool for us to assess our performance using comparative, confidential feedback from grantees.
The reports, conducted every five years by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), provide data about how our grantees perceive us and comparisons to peer foundations who also participate in the survey (more than 250 foundations have commissioned the survey from CEP).
In August 2020, we commissioned CEP to conduct the fourth Grantee Perception Report survey of our grantees. We have shared the final report with grantees, our Board of Directors, and staff. We invite you to read our blog post summarizing what we learned and how we plan to address certain findings to improve grantees’ experiences. You can also download the full report below.