As the trust-based philanthropy wave is washing over the sector once again, concerns over its ability to prove impact, facilitate learning, and evaluate previous approaches are bubbling up. As a philanthropy professional with over two decades of experience in learning, measurement, and evaluation, I believe it is a false dichotomy to pit ceding control against measuring impact. 

Trust-based philanthropy is having a moment – from the first ripples caused by news of MacKenzie Scott’s large, flexible, and unrestricted gifts to non-profits back in 2020, to the Economist’s latest report on philanthropy heralding trust-based approaches as one of the most effective vehicles for a growing group of ultra-high-net-worth individuals to give more and do it faster.

Toward the end of last year, The Center for Effective Philanthropy assessed the effects of Scott’s giving, polling how other funders viewed her approach. While more than 80 percent of respondents praised her approach, over three-quarters of funders interviewed also expressed concern about nonprofits’ ability to handle large, unrestricted gifts. A common theme in these concerns was a perceived lack of transparency and rigour around measuring impact.

In many ways, these concerns go to the core of what the philanthropic sector holds dear – the assurance that their charitable funds are well stewarded and contribute to desired outcomes. Coming from the learning, measurement, and evaluation field, I understand these concerns. So, it might come as a surprise that I believe the idea that you cannot properly measure impact within a model of trust-based philanthropy is a false dichotomy. I have seen time and again how organisations I’ve worked with get sharper at measurement, demonstrating impact and learning, precisely when funders cede control and offer trust and guidance instead.

Adjusting how as funders we use measurement is key to shifting the unequal power structures on which philanthropy has traditionally been built. At Co-Impact – a global philanthropic collaborative – a foundational principle of our work is understanding that our program partners are best placed to design strategies that will be effective in addressing persistent problems. They are rooted in the context, have decades of experience, understand the political economy, and have deep relationships with key actors who can help drive change. It clearly follows then that if these organizations design and own strategies, they also need to define and own ways to assess impact.

What such organizations need most is funders who will support them to excel in both strategy and measurement without imposing the funder’s view of what matters. So as funders we do give up control. But we all gain in the form of deeper engagement and collaboration with partners – and, most importantly, more real-life impact.

Let’s look at an example: PRADAN is an organisation working with women from the most vulnerable and marginalised communities in India, helping them organise into collectives and access government programs to increase incomes. This enables them to enhance their well-being holistically across different spheres of life.

PRADAN was founded in 1983 and works in more than 40,000 villages across eight Indian states. They are serious about the change they want to effect and always strive to improve their approach. This is one of the many reasons we were eager to partner with them. Accepting their ambition and expertise, we first aligned with PRADAN on outcomes they wanted to see for people – such as households with sustained access to water, or increased income for women. Then, we worked closely with PRADAN to help define outcomes for the system: that is, what are those key necessary shifts within public institutions and government programs that will ensure these outcomes for people are sustained over time.

With a new systems-change strategy, PRADAN also needed to re-define their measurement approach so that it would align with the strategy. If as a funder we imposed our own indicators or evaluation requirements, this would only distract PRADAN from focusing on what is important. Co-Impact’s role then was to support them with the tools and guidance to develop their measurement and learning capacities and to capture impact while fully supporting their deep collaborative approach with the government.

Fast-forward a few years, PRADAN is implementing its systems change strategy as well as an ambitious measurement plan. They are building internal measurement capacity and tracking new indicators, from engaging in the collection of real-time data, which allows more flexibility and faster adjustments when approaches are not working to collecting systems-level data to measure impact where it matters. Alongside, they are working with researchers to help define and measure women’s collective agency, an innovation in both implementation and evaluation of impact. All this by their own choice and design.

Perhaps most importantly, PRADAN is working closely with local government officials to generate trusted and verifiable data throughout the planning and implementation process, helping local officials to better target social welfare programs, and to have a simple but robust data system that allows the Government to understand who is being reached, who is benefitting, what are the challenges and how to pivot when data does not correspond to the desired outcome. This is systems-level change at its best.

And it can only happen if funders listen carefully, work collaboratively with our partners, and offer support where needed, but mostly trust that our partners know what they are doing.

Varja Lipovsek is Director of Learning, Measurement and Evaluation at Co-Impact