New Online Self-Assessment Tool for Foundations

Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Releases New Guide on Assessing and Implementing Strategic Time Horizons. Click here to access the tool. Full alignment of staff, resources and approaches with mission, vision, and values is ideal—but the reality is that many philanthropies have areas where this is not the case or don’t have accessible instruments to facilitate such introspection. A new, freely available online tool from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors can help. This resource, created as part of RPA’s Theory of the Foundation initiative, is a self-assessment tool to help philanthropies get a better understanding of how their internal elements and processes align with external impact. It consists of twenty questions, which, when answered, will provide feedback on how funders:

• approach their legacy, governance and decision-making;
• view and express their role in society; and
• choose to marshal and operationalize resources.

Most importantly, the generated analysis shows how these elements intersect and align, and surfaces potential tensions. Who Will Benefit from this Tool? The tool is designed for new or seasoned organizations, families and individuals engaged in philanthropy who are seeking a deeper understanding of how their organizations work and how to better leverage their resources and investments for impact. The tool can be particularly helpful for donors to:

• Conduct a philanthropic “gut check” or review of whether your identity, structure and approaches makes sense in the context of internal and external shifts.
• Ensure there is alignment across all levels of the organization on the core concepts, values and approaches.
• Better manage important organizational inflection points, such as leadership transitions or adopting new directions or approaches.

How Does the Tool Work? The tool can be used as an individual, as a team, or as an organization.

1. Visit [hyperlink] and fill out survey questions. Identifying information (name, organization) is 100% optional and will be kept confidential if provided.
2. Upon completion, you will receive a report with the main findings and analysis. This report will be provided on separate screens that you will need to flip through.
3. To preserve your report, be sure to select the print option.
4. Use the insights for strategic discussions, when making important decisions and in conversations with staff.

Click here to access the tool. For those seeking to assess alignment in responses of multiple individuals within one organization, please reach out to us and we can provide a compiled report. If you have any questions about the analysis, please reach out to us at info@rockpa.org. All responses are confidential and will not be attributed or shared on an individual basis, though RPA may use responses to report on trends or further fine-tune this instrument. Please note that the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) module of the tool is intended for research purposes and will inform our future work on this crucial consideration for philanthropy.