The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Making Use of Lessons Learned

Learning is important for its own sake, but lessons reveal their real power when they are put to use. First, the lessons learned from the conduct of a project can be disseminated to practitioners, academics, and policymakers, and can also be used to expand the project into a program with multiple locations—perhaps even to bring the program to a national scale. In the longer run, these lessons can inform and improve the way grantmaking is done at the foundation.

Harvesting the lessons learned closes the loop on program work. Grantmaking begins with scanning and priority setting, continues with strategic planning, goes through the phases of funding and evaluating projects, and after the lessons are learned and tested ...