Famed football coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
The Community Foundation knows that better community service comes not only from building on our strengths, but also from identifying where we need to improve.
Through our grants, programs and initiatives, we are always striving to be an excellent resource for our nonprofit partners and the neighbors that they serve. Eight years ago, we engaged with The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a national nonprofit sup- porting the work of foundations across the country, to conduct a grantee and applicant perception survey. We hoped to receive candid feedback to help us identify areas for growth. The results did just that, reaffirming some themes and encouraging us to do bet- ter with others. Since then, many momentous changes have taken place in our community, with our nonprofit partners and within the Community Foundation. With this in mind, we decided to conduct another survey, and we need your help for it to have the most meaningful impact.
If your organization has applied for a grant (awarded or not) from the Community Foun- dation in the past two years, you will receive a CEP survey this spring. The confidential and anonymous online questionnaire will touch on several themes, including our im- pact in the community; our interactions and communications with you; the application and reporting processes; assistance beyond the grant; and diversity, equity and inclusion. CEP provides data, feedback, programs and insights to help individual donors and foundations improve their effectiveness at contributing to a better and more just world. CEP also puts the feedback in a comparative context, providing benchmarks from similar foundations.
We encourage you to participate in this survey. Honest feedback from our partners helps us improve our processes and programs; it also contributes to building trust. A positive, trust-based relationship with our nonprofit partners is paramount to our mission and our work. If we are falling short of that, we want to know about it and how we can improve. While we welcome feedback at any time, we recognize that many of our partners have limited time or are not comfortable doing so. This survey is designed to be easy, convenient and confidential so you can share your thoughts freely and efficiently.
We hope you will continue this journey of improvement with us.
To learn more about the CEP Survey, please contact Danielle Johnson at: djohnson@cnycf.org or 315-883-5554
