Fund for Shared Insight

Fund for Shared Insight is a collaborative effort among the Rita Allen Foundation and other foundations to bring greater responsiveness and effectiveness to philanthropy. Launched in 2014 as a three-year, $20 million initiative by eight core funders, Shared Insight now includes 39 funders supporting 70 nonprofit organizations. Its grant making aims to increase foundation openness, and to improve feedback loops among foundations, nonprofits and the people they seek to help. In addition to the Listen for Good initiative, recent work sponsored by Shared Insight includes “Sharing What Matters: Foundation Transparency,” a report released in 2016 by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP). To assess the meaning and current practice of transparency in philanthropy, CEP used survey data from 145 foundation CEOs and more than 15,000 grantees. Its analysis revealed that, while many foundations are openly sharing their grant-making processes, goals and strategies, there is room for improvement in sharing approaches to grant evaluation and lessons learned from grant making. Shared Insight is co-chaired by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Ford Foundation. Other founding funders include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The JPB Foundation, Liquidnet, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.