As a grantmaker, questions are your instruments. They allow you to collect data, assess wants, measure outcomes, and construct relationships along with your grantees. However are you asking the suitable questions? And are you asking them in the suitable method?

On this weblog submit, we’ll share some insights and greatest practices from our current webinar, Change Up Your Questions: Exploring and Shaping What You Ask Grantees and How You Ask Them, the place Marshall Ginn of Capital Philanthropy mentioned tips on how to consider and enhance your software questions. We may even offer you seven inquiries to ask your self about your questions, to ensure they’re related, clear, respectful, and helpful.

Why Change Up Your Questions?

Altering up your questions is not only about making beauty tweaks or updates. It’s about ensuring that your questions align along with your organizational values and your targets for the grantmaking program. It’s additionally about ensuring that your questions replicate the present state of your neighborhood and the sector, and that they respect the range and experience of your candidates.

Reviewing and amending your questions also can allow you to get higher and extra constant solutions, which might make your overview course of simpler and simpler. By being clear about what you might be in search of and why, you possibly can keep away from confusion, ambiguity, and guesswork. You can even keep away from asking for data that you simply don’t want or use, which might save time and sources for each you and your grantees.

The right way to Change Up Your Questions

Altering up your questions can imply various things, relying in your context and desires. Listed below are some examples of what you are able to do to alter up your questions:

• Add components or dimensions: make clear, encourage extra exact responses, or ask for extra particulars
• Make small modifications: tweak the language or edit inquiries to be easier, shorter, or extra particular
• Rewrite the entire thing: if a query feels outdated, irrelevant, or inconsistent, rewrite it to match your present priorities and expectations
• Take issues out: if a query is just not important or doesn’t assist making a decision, take away it from the appliance
• Transfer issues round: if a query is best fitted to a special stage of the method, resembling a follow-up interview or a post-award communication, transfer it to that stage.

For some modifications, you could want to speak them to your neighborhood and clarify the rationale behind them. You can even solicit suggestions out of your grantees and your reviewers to see how any of the modifications are working and what else could be improved.

What To Ask as You Overview Your Questions

That will help you consider and enhance your software, listed below are seven inquiries to ask your self as you overview every query. These questions are based mostly on the framework Marshall shared within the webinar, which you should use as a information in your personal overview course of.

1. Does this query replicate the mission of my group? Make it possible for your query is constant along with your values and your imaginative and prescient. This can be the primary main interplay that your applicant has along with your group, so that you need to make a very good impression and convey what you stand for.
2. How will I exploit this data? Be clear concerning the objective and the worth of every query. For those who don’t have a very good reply for a way you’ll use the data, you could not must ask the query.
3. Is that this query related? Make it possible for your query displays the present wants and realities of your neighborhood and the sector. In case your query is outdated, inaccurate, or may very well be perceived as insensitive, you could want to alter it or take away it.
4. Can this query be interpreted otherwise? Keep away from utilizing regionalisms, jargon, or complicated wording that may hinder understanding. Think about how totally different folks with totally different backgrounds and experiences could interpret your query and attempt to make it as clear and inclusive as attainable.
5. What am I in search of with this query? Be particular about what sort of reply you expect and what standards you’ll use to judge it. If you would like numbers, ask for numbers. If you would like examples, ask for examples. Present an outline or greatest practices as a second half to the query, if wanted.
6. Can this query be simplified? Search for methods to simplify your language and your construction to make your query simpler to learn and reply. Use commonplace writing greatest practices, resembling brief sentences and lively voice. Break down complicated or multi-part questions into smaller and easier ones. And once more, be aware of jargon or extremely technical phrases.
7. Would this query be higher requested in a follow-up interview or post-award communication? Think about the timing and the context of your query. Some questions could also be extra applicable or efficient at a later stage of the method, when you could have extra rapport and belief along with your grantees. Some questions may be extra appropriate for a dialog than a written response.

Making a Significant and Measured Utility

Questions are highly effective instruments for grantmakers, however they must be used correctly and nicely. By asking your self these seven questions on your questions, you possibly can make it possible for your software is aligned along with your values, targets, and affect. You can even make your software course of extra environment friendly, respectful, and significant for each you and your grantees.

Are you in search of methods to replace your software course of? Try our information on tips on how to handle your software pipeline, the place you can find extra ideas and greatest practices on tips on how to design and optimize your software course of.