Out of Crisis, Learnings Shape Future Grantmaking

Abstract

Like other philanthropic organizations during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jim Joseph Foundation took steps to loosen grant requirements, support CEOs and leadership teams, and provide funding for emergencies and innovations. Another area that required flexibility was in the re-examination of learning plans to take advantage of the "forced experimentation" imposed by the pandemic lockdown. In March 2020, the foundation paused ongoing research and evaluation projects to determine the extent to which the pandemic and economic crisis would impact the quality of the data, and then crafted new learning questions and plans to take advantage of the opportunities in the moment. It pivoted to redeploy resources to assess how the internal foundation team responded to the crisis, how grantees pivoted to online programming, and how the crisis and online programming were experienced by target populations.