December 10, 2013

Dear Partners,

I want to share an update on the feedback you provided in the Grantee Perception Report (GPR) survey.

Over the last few months, my leadership team and I reviewed your input and the constructive comments that many of you took the time to provide. We also looked at the input we received from employees as we are aware that the effectiveness of our internal interactions has an impact on you and your experience of the foundation. By focusing on better understanding all of the feedback, we have identified where we need to continue our efforts and where we need to re-think our approach.
 
Overall, your feedback showed that we have made some progress but still have significant room for improving our partnerships, across several key areas including impact, relationships, and processes. As such, we are absolutely committed to: 

• improving internal coordination and communication
• being clear about the rationale for decisions
• encouraging dialogue and sharing diverse perspectives

To make these commitments a reality, the foundation’s leadership team has set two goals for which every leader and employee will be responsible: 

1. Reduce complexity and streamline processes. We have heard your feedback over the years about our cumbersome grantmaking processes. In order to maximize our resources and achieve greater impact together, starting next year, you can expect a common process across all our strategies for both grants and contracts. Our goal is that in the longer term, it will result in greater transparency and increased efficiency, translating to time savings that will allow for more collaborative discussions. 
2. Improve collaboration, starting with being clear about how we work together and what we expect from one another, through open and honest conversations about how things are going. What this means is that you can expect to co-develop grants and other investments with your program officer, and have clearly defined outcomes for grants and other investments.

In order to ensure we are aligned on key aspects of our work together, we will be experimenting with new ways for engaging with you to get real-time feedback on how we are working together. Specifically, we will be measuring a) if our decision-making process is clear, b) if you are clear on how we are engaging with you, and c) if you understand how the investment fits with both of our strategies. We will be conducting a pilot in the new year with a small group of partners.

We also plan to solicit feedback from you via a brief, confidential online survey to help us gauge our progress in reducing complexity and improving collaboration.

In the meantime, if you are not already a member, please consider joining our grantee advisory community to provide input on programs, processes or initiatives that we are working on. You can send an email to engagement@gatesdonation.com for more details.

We believe that achieving results and ultimately, impact to beneficiaries, depends on the quality of our collaboration with you, our partners. That is why we are committed to forging stronger relationships with you.

Thank you for all you do on behalf of our collective goals and mission. 

Jeff Raikes
CEO (Past)