How Australian funders are adopting organisational effectiveness.

Julia Keady, Founder and CEO of Benefolk, has been championing an integrated way for funders and grantee partners to achieve a capability and wellbeing uplift using the Organisational Effectiveness framework. Julia calls this ‘reverse grantmaking’. It is one of the topics covered at the Beyond the Grant webinar series, hosted by Philanthropy Australia and Benefolk. Julia explains how ‘OE’ developed and its possibilities.

OE is a programmatic approach that offers charities and social enterprises access to a multi-disciplinary, holistic way of building leadership, culture, governance, strategy, and wellbeing together, rather than in isolated pieces.

Increasingly, we are working with funders who want to give their partners some ‘OE love’. This means we are working with social sector organisations to understand their capability needs and priorities, then co-ordinating those services by drawing from a prepaid services pool of funds (enabled through our DGR1 charity). We’ve coined this “reverse grantmaking” because it removes the burden of the grant application process for both funders and NFPs, and it is both elegant and efficient for all stakeholders involved – funders, charities and service providers.

What is Organisational Effectiveness?

I first came across OE in 2022 through this report on how philanthropic foundations in the USA were funding capacity building in organisations they cared about.

Leading this is the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which has focused on organisational effectiveness since 2004. It has awarded more than $67 million to 750+ organisations to strengthen leadership, governance, strategic planning, financial sustainability and operational efficiency.

Evaluation of Hewlett’s OE programme highlighted several key learnings:

• Improved organisational health: 89% of grantee respondents reported enhanced organisational health and an increased ability to make progress toward mission and strategic goals.
• Filling a funding gap: 49% of grantees would have delayed or foregone capacity-strengthening work without the OE grant, and 75% said the grant funded projects they would not normally have access to. Smaller organisations particularly benefited.
• Equity considerations: Respondents who were black, indigenous or people of colour (BIPOC) were less likely to request OE support (37% vs. 51% of non BIPOC respondents) and less likely to have received an OE grant previously (12% vs. 22%), highlighting inequities in access.

Similarly, the Ford Foundation’s BUILD initiative provides long-term, flexible funding to strengthen social justice organisations. If you love an evaluation,  here’s the BUILD program’s five-year evaluation. Another to watch is Richard King Mellon Foundation, which supports leadership, governance, human capital, strategy and communications to enhance organisational agility.

Translating lessons to Australia

Inspired by these models, Benefolk has been exploring how an OE lens can be applied in Australia, and how we can weave together both wellbeing and capability building outcomes.

Over the last three years, we have been trusted with $1.5 million in grants by five foundations, and one government grant, to provide organisational support to 338 organisations. Another 38 organisations were helped with deeper, tailored support. Alongside this, more than 600 charities and social enterprises have directly accessed services through Benefolk, and 15,000 have accessed free resources, including The Community Well hub.

Supporting organisational challenges

A key topic in the upcoming webinars will be how organisations navigate periods of change and challenge. This is a growing area of need. Structured, supportive interventions can stabilise governance, strengthen leadership and improve financial health. Even organisations facing significant challenges can emerge more resilient and capable of sustaining impact when approached strategically.

Opportunities for Funders

For philanthropy, adopting an Organisational Effectiveness lens can shape how support is offered:

• Invest in the whole organisation, not just programs or projects.
• Offer flexible, long-term support to enable not-for-profits to build capacity and adapt over time, allowing time also for reflection and evaluation.
• Engage collaboratively with intermediaries and leaders to co-create solutions.
• Build efficiency, working with intermediaries like Benefolk who provide a one-stop shop rather than working piecemeal or running grant application rounds.
• Recognise wellbeing as central, spanning leaders, organisations, and the sector.

These learnings form the foundation of the upcoming Beyond the Grant webinars, which will provide practical examples, case studies, and tools to help funders engage in meaningful conversations about organisational health, resilience, and long-term impact. Read more / register here. You can contact me at julia@benefolk.org.