OAK FOUNDATION [www.oakfnd.org]

Problem
The Oak Foundation sought to evaluate the performance of its marine-related grantmaking since its founding. The Foundation’s grant portfolio included over 55 grants to over 40 grantees spanning much of the globe. A variety of grantmaking approaches and geographic concentrations had been taken, including support for marine protected areas in Belize, fisheries reform in the Bering Strait, and fisheries policy reform in Brussels. The Foundation was interested in understanding which of their grant approaches had been most effective, which geographic areas had benefited most from their support, and how they should focus their grantmaking in the future.

Solution
CEA worked with the Oak Foundation to systematically evaluate their grant portfolio. The evaluation included:

• A series of structured conversations with key Foundation staff to understand their grant making objectives and to develop a set of “first principles”—overall guidelines which govern the Foundation’s grant strategy;
• An overall evaluation of grantee and portfolio performance—this was based on the degree to which transformation of specific marine-related issues had occurred as a result of the grant, at a scale and cost acceptable to the foundation;
• Collection of qualitative and quantitative information from grantees through detailed surveys;
• In-depth case studies of several grantees, including an analysis of their accomplishments to date, collaboration with other partners, and potential leverage of other projects in their region; and
• Development of alterative grantmaking strategies including potential grant programs, tactics, expected outcomes, and program selection criteria.
• Managed foundation and stakeholder relations and fielded all inquiries from the field.
• Led FSFS through the process of developing and structuring a new foundation collaborative, the ROC Fund, that will achieve the goals outlined by the group.
• Served as a facilitator, mediator, and organizer at FSFS steering committee meetings and foundation education sessions.

Results
The project culminated in recommendations on how the Foundation could further concentrate their grantmaking geographically and topically to be more effective. The Foundation has since reduced its opportunistic approach to strategically focus on several highly leveraged geographic areas and programmatic approaches.