Excerpt

On Site Visits
The art of information excavation

The following is an excerpt from Grantmaking Basics: A Field Guide for Funders, by Barbara D. Kibbe, Fred Setterberg and Colburn Wilbur, which will be published by the Council on Foundations this fall. To order, call 888/239-5221.

Site visits can lift your spirits and enliven your day by reminding you precisely why you chose to work in the foundation world.

By speaking in-person with grant applicants and surveying their operations, you can gather crucial information, add depth and texture to your funding recommendations, cultivate your professional skills and expand your knowledge of the extraordinarily diverse nonprofit world.

Your quest, when you undertake a site visit, should focus on finding answers to five essential questions:

• What is really happening?    
• How is it happening?    
• Who is involved?    
• What does the physical appearance of the site indicate?    
• What is the public benefit derived from the effort?

Producing the information that can answer these questions is, not surprisingly, a complicated task. You will need to rely on a mixture of direct observation and conversation, peppered with strategic curiosity.

Of course, it is also worth noting that you will run into agencies that simply are very well run. You will not need to strenuously inspect the situation; you do not have to head off to the interview worried about what you may find. Instead, you will quickly recognize that the proposal is sensible, the agency is well-managed, its reputation appears solid, the results of its efforts are self-evident. In such cases, there really is not anything to dig up. Your mission is to build rapport and construct a basis for your long-term collaboration—a happy duty.

Many site visits, however, will demand more thoughtful inquiry. Although one cannot specify the precise questions that you should habitually ask, it is possible to suggest the qualities that will best serve your inquiry.

They are:

Variety. Throughout your visit, ask different kinds of questions. Mix the specific ("How many clients will you serve next year?") with the open-ended ("Tell me about your development campaign") as well as the unabashedly reflective ("What moments in your work have told you that you are on the right course?").

Order. Ask questions in a logical progression. If you have five questions about staffing, work through them consecutively. If you jump around, you will confuse everybody and add an unwanted dash of chaos to an already complex encounter.

Permission. Sometimes you will need to coax out details about the less pleasant aspects of organizational life. For instance, if you suspect that the board has been battling recently with staff, then a general question—"How are your board and staff relations?"—may not suffice. You will almost inevitably hear, "Oh, they are pretty good." Better to say: "Lots of organizations experience stress between their staff and board; it is really in the nature of the nonprofit structure. What are the points of conflict in your organization?" In this way, you have made their problem universal, relieved the pressure and given them the opportunity to be honest with you without fearing that you will misunderstand.

Good Faith. Formulate genuine questions whose answers will illuminate your understanding of the organization and its mission. Avoid any hint of sarcasm, meanness or self-righteous pique. Do not set traps. A program officer is neither a private investigator nor a public prosecutor.

Toward the conclusion of your interview, do not forget to ask these generic questions:

• "What should I know that I have not asked you?"    
• "What are you worried that I might have misunderstood?"    
• "Is there anything that we have left out?"

Asking these questions goes straight to the heart of your task—they'll help inform you about the organization in the most thorough and pertinent way possible. They'll also reinforce another essential truth: You are not the expert; they are. You are there to learn from them.

Once you have chosen an organization to visit, what benefits can you expect from your effort?

• Meet the people.    
• Learn more about the organization and its project.    
• See beyond the proposal.    
• Gain a sense of place.    
• Extend your professional development.    
• Determine actual need.    
• Offer helpful advice, sparingly.