2023 Center for Effective Philanthropy Grantee Perception Report

For two decades, The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) Grantee Perception Report (GPR) has been an important tool to gather and act on grantee feedback. The 2023 GPR findings indicate that grantees see the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) commitment to building strong partnerships and creating a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right.

The Issue

Our grantees are essential collaborators in our efforts to dismantle structural racism and other barriers to health so that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to thrive. Since 2004, RWJF has partnered with CEP to conduct a biannual survey of grantees about their perceptions of and experiences with the Foundation. The GPR is one of RWJF’s main tools to gather and implement grantee feedback and build strong partnerships that our mutual success depends on.

Key Findings

• Grantees see RWJF as a leader in communicating our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in our work, and affirm that RWJF staff embody that commitment.  
  
• Grantees are spending less time on reporting requirements and indicate that the selection process is much more straightforward than in past years. 
  
• Grantees report a statistically significant increase in unrestricted, multi-year grants.
  
• Grantees’ ratings on RWJF’s understanding of and impact on their fields and the communities they serve are largely unchanged since 2019, putting RWJF in the bottom third of the comparison cohort of similar foundations for these measures. 

About the Study

The 2023 GPR, fielded between February and March of 2023, surveyed participating grantees from more than 275 foundations on a range of questions, as well as some questions that were asked only of RWJF’s grantees. CEP received responses from 990 active RWJF grantees. This equals a 55% response rate, which is comparable to RWJF’s historical response rates and provides a rich dataset for CEP’s analysis. Responses to the survey are anonymously aggregated in the GPR, which provides comprehensive, actionable feedback for the Foundation. For deeper insight, the Foundation’s results are benchmarked against a comparison cohort of similar foundations.