Most foundations go about communicating their grants activity completely backwards. Typical of a listing in a foundation annual report or on a grants announcement is a perfunctory roster of grants made in a certain time period, with emphasis on the amount of the grant and with a cursory identification of the recipient organization.
New research suggests that's one reason the public pays scant attention to what foundations do.
The public isn't all that interested in the numbers on the check. That's one of the findings from a research effort commissioned by the Council on Foundations that has just concluded this fall. Next researchers asked recipients to describe their feelings about foundations and probed for specifics about why the respondent felt either positively or negatively. The findings of this research phase can be distilled down to eight key points. Respondents had little knowledge about the actual work of foundations.