The art of listening

Funding is shaped by a power imba­lance: one side has resour­ces and expec­ta­ti­ons, while the other needs support and is under pres­sure to perform. This is also reflec­ted in how reports are drawn up. Colla­bo­ra­tive part­ner­ships are foun­ded on trust and appre­cia­tion – and mini­mal admi­nis­tra­tive outlay. Foun­da­ti­ons can protect these quali­ties by enga­ging in direct dialo­gue throug­hout the dura­tion of the funding process.

Why oral reporting?

SKKG wants to be a good part­ner, bols­ter its colla­bo­ra­ti­ons, learn from its projects and save time for those invol­ved. In so doing, it’s respon­ding to the 2019 gran­tee survey under­ta­ken by CEPS. The foun­da­tion has made various decis­i­ons off the back of this, inclu­ding doing away with writ­ten project reports and intro­du­cing oral report­ing. In colla­bo­ra­tion with Lea Buck, from the Azurit Foun­da­tion, and Michaela Wintrich, from the Unter­neh­mer­stif­tung für Chan­cen­ge­rech­tig­keit, a working paper has been draf­ted that descri­bes the tool. The docu­ment is public and can be viewed online, while funding reci­pi­ents are fami­liar with it from the off. Anyone who wishes to do so is welcome to suggest chan­ges and addi­ti­ons: www.oralreporting.info.

Oral report­ing about oral reporting 

SKKG has been test­ing out this approach for a year now and has alre­ady held 28 discus­sions. It’s clear that the meetings foster mutual trust and a culture where people aren’t afraid to make mista­kes. For this article, we give it a try for oursel­ves, taking three ques­ti­ons from the working paper for this discus­sion by members of the SKKG team. You can listen to the entire report between Chris­tine Müller Stal­der, SKKG, and Theresa Gehrin­ger, SKKG, via the QR code. 

Ques­tion 1: how are things, what’s the situation?

Like many insti­tu­ti­ons, we take spring as the tradi­tio­nal oppor­tu­nity to look back on the funding we awarded in the past year. With more than 30 funding reci­pi­ents, we’re using the oral report­ing ques­ti­on­n­aire almost weekly. Gene­rally, we plan for a 90-minute discus­sion but we adapt this to the needs of the orga­ni­sa­tion at hand in each instance. We either hold the meetings on site, at our premi­ses in Winter­thur or remo­tely. After­wards, we write up the minu­tes for our interlo­cu­tor, drawing on their feed­back – saving them lots of time. It also gives us an in-depth sense of the impact our funding is having.

In other words, oral report­ing is a tool we use very often, and one we enjoy using, despite the extra work it leads to at our end. The feed­back has been wholly posi­tive: there’s surprise that we, as a foun­da­tion, are taking so much time and also show­ing an inte­rest in things that are outside the project recei­ving funding; there’s enthu­si­asm that our part­ners have someone with whom to reflect on, and deve­lop, their project; and there’s grati­tude that we’re show­ing reco­gni­tion and appre­cia­tion for their work.

Ques­tion 1: how are things, what’s the situation?

Like many insti­tu­ti­ons, we take spring as the tradi­tio­nal oppor­tu­nity to look back on the funding we awarded in the past year. With more than 30 funding reci­pi­ents, we’re using the oral report­ing ques­ti­on­n­aire almost weekly. Gene­rally, we plan for a 90-minute discus­sion but we adapt this to the needs of the orga­ni­sa­tion at hand in each instance. We either hold the meetings on site, at our premi­ses in Winter­thur or remo­tely. After­wards, we write up the minu­tes for our interlo­cu­tor, drawing on their feed­back – saving them lots of time. It also gives us an in-depth sense of the impact our funding is having.

In other words, oral report­ing is a tool we use very often, and one we enjoy using, despite the extra work it leads to at our end. The feed­back has been wholly posi­tive: there’s surprise that we, as a foun­da­tion, are taking so much time and also show­ing an inte­rest in things that are outside the project recei­ving funding; there’s enthu­si­asm that our part­ners have someone with whom to reflect on, and deve­lop, their project; and there’s grati­tude that we’re show­ing reco­gni­tion and appre­cia­tion for their work.

Ques­tion 2: what have you been able to achieve – yester­day, today and tomorrow?

At this point, we’re normally inte­res­ted in the outputs and outco­mes attai­ned. For us, we can use oral report­ing to forge a closer, trus­ting rela­ti­onship with muse­ums and hear about their ever­y­day oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges at the inter­nal or stra­te­gic level. We see this as the magic of a conver­sa­tion. It helps us in two respects: it enables us to use our funding in a more targe­ted, more effec­tive way, while our close connec­tion also allows us to provide exper­tise to support this. We guide the focus of the discus­sion towards the things that our funding faci­li­ta­tes and enables, not towards the things that people think we, as the entity provi­ding the money, want to hear.

Ques­tion 3: if we could wave a magic wand, what would really help you?

…our favou­rite ques­tion! The most frequent answer is ‘more money’, but people actually come up with totally diffe­rent ideas once they’ve had a chance to think. We’re the same when it comes to oral report­ing. It would bene­fit the method if more insti­tu­ti­ons used it. Why not use it colla­bo­ra­tively? This would free up the recipient’s resour­ces that are curr­ently tied up in crea­ting lots of sepa­rate reports. Plus, oral report­ing helps people look at new, complex issues from diffe­rent perspec­ti­ves. We’d love to share our wealth of expe­ri­ence with the commu­nity and refine the oral report­ing format further.