Commentary

For many foundations, the embrace of best practices as the standard of good philanthropic service is, in the end, a case of the good being the enemy of the excellent. New ideas—the seeds of excellence and one of the greatest contributions to the social good—are threatened by the mistaken notion that best practices must be the only standard on which to base funding decisions.

In other words, when grantmakers—be they the federal government or a philanthropic entity—adopt a best practice as the operational status quo, they unwittingly disrupt the traditional course of innovation nurtured by foundations. Best practices exist only because they were once new ideas. By funding new ideas (and their accompanying evaluations) foundations contribute two important advancements to the social good: improving existing practices and expanding the knowledge base, which in turn lays the foundation for further improvements.

Thus, considering only what is as the way things should be comes at the expense of what can be. When foundations insist on funding only best practices, they threaten their important function of thinking “outside-the-box.”

One could ask, What’s wrong with best practices? They, along with science-based and evidence-based, are viewed by many foundation officers as hallmarks of good, responsible grantmaking. The answer is five-fold: (1) Although ubiquitous in the foundation world, there is no commonly accepted definition of best practices; (2) There is a confounding time lag from the time a practice is created until it’s tested and disseminated; (3) Rigorous testing often leads to less reality-based and generalizable results; (4) Overemphasis on best practices, at the expense of innovation, penalizes pacesetting organizations; and (5) Using one best practice as the conceptual framework for a program too often encourages a one-size-fits-all approach to a foundation’s practices.

The Problem of Definition

With no precise definition of science-based, evidence-based and best practices, the three terms are often used interchangeably to confer credibility on a foundation’s practices. But on closer examination, the terms are defined differently among different groups, and sometimes even within the same group.

Of the three qualifiers (science, evidence and best), science has the most widely accepted definition. Although science can refer both to the way we gather information as well as to the data itself, most often science refers to information that results from research—a process of rigorous testing. Scientific rigor within that process requires control of as many variables as possible in the situation under review. Researchers must account for any factor that might cause the result or condition under review; thus individuals under observation must be randomly placed into at least two groups—a control group and an experimental group. This testing permits the researcher to isolate in turn various effects from their possible causes so that one can make cause and effect statements within a known degree of probability. It is the adherence to the rules of science that lends credibility to the results. Thus, because rigorous research requires experts knowledgeable in the scientific method, scientific evaluation is expensive and very time consuming.

Hence, absent any quantifiable research, both the “evidence” of evidence-based practice and the “best” of best practices are in the eye of the beholder.

How strong the evidence or how good a best practice must be to meet an acceptable level of credibility varies from person to person. Some groups have placed evidence-based practice on a continuum of credibility based on the amount of scientific evidence, usually the number of publications in refereed journals, and the rigor used in testing the practice. A best practice, on the other hand, may be “best” for any number of reasons including

• because it appears to work better than other ideas in practice;     
• management prefers it;     
• it is less expensive;     
• it is “good” practice compared to “bad practices; or     
• because it is science-based or evidence-based.

The Problem of Time Lag

The time it takes for practices to appear in the literature can present a problem for grantmakers. Research studies are notoriously slow to be published, but may also take two years or more before being put into practice. The foundation world changes so rapidly these days that the resulting knowledge is often dated by the time it’s accepted into practice.

The Problem of Rigor and Reality

A hallmark of excellence in science is objectivity, while the hallmark of excellence in service delivery is individuality. Hence, a real problem for foundations is the feasibility of replicating practice exactly as it was tested.

For researchers, it is important to account for all of the alternative explanations that could explain the outcomes. However, outside of a controlled environment, there is no way to control the many factors that influence individual outcomes. In many cases, it would be considered unethical to do so. In the real world things happen in an open, “uncontrolled” system. So, as reality increases, scientific rigor decreases.

The rigor versus reality dilemma may be the reason that many practitioners do not read scientific journals. And so, scientific information often comes to the practitioner via an interpreter—often a faculty member or consultant who may be very removed from the realities of the practice setting.

Program evaluation is one approach that attempts to capture the reality of working in open systems. Program evaluation is often considered to be in the gray area of scientific knowledge, because it cannot have the rigor necessary to establish cause and effect relationships. The purpose of program evaluation is informed decisionmaking regarding programs. Program decisions are informed by values established by the evaluator, which prioritizes what to fund based on the efficiency and effectiveness inherent in a particular proposal. Program evaluation, then, ranks high in describing and understanding the outcomes of practice.

Penalizing Pacesetters

Some groups are pacesetters. For them, waiting for publication of results may be problematic, because these groups are on the cutting edge not of what is, but what could be. One could only imagine the resistance if faculty at Harvard or Johns Hopkins, faced with a pressing problem, were told that they could only use information that was two-years old, but science-based.

There are also community groups that are extremely knowledgeable about the communities where they work. These groups, with a community history, often have a practical knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work in a particular community. Although they are culturally sensitive and have knowledge of interpersonal relationships in the community, they rarely have the resources to research their practice.

Granted, not all groups have the resources or the foresight to be pacesetters. So for non-pacesetting groups, best practices that meet an acceptable standard are excellent ways to assure the best service delivery.

Avoiding the One-Size-Fits-All Mentality

It would be wonderful if there was one approach that consistently fixed a problem. In life, with only a few exceptions—such as vaccinations—problems are seldom solved for everyone with a single approach. Unfortunately, there is no “practice panacea,” and increasingly, government agencies and foundations require a best practice as a funding requirement.

However, the expert practitioner and the client are penalized when the approach they must use is mandated. The unique background that clients bring to the practice setting influences what will work and what will not work in bringing about desired outcomes. The experienced practitioner works with the client to match the problem and its circumstances with a solution.

Unfortunately, program evaluation often supports this one-size-fits-all thinking. We evaluate to find out if the science-based practice produced evidence of the desired outcome(s). If the outcome is not achieved, we tend to believe the implementation of the best practice was defective. Perhaps it was, and then again, perhaps it was not.

Perhaps half of the people got worse and half of the people got better. Numerically these people would cancel each other out and the result would be seen as no change in mean statistical scores. The question in evaluation should not be “What works?” but “What works for whom, and under what conditions?” In other words, it is as important to understand differences within a group as it is to understand differences between groups.

Defusing the Dangers of Best Practices

According to Michael Quinn Patton (author, renowned educator and consultant specializing in organizational development and program evaluation), foundations should think of their program of grantmaking as a portfolio. Boards of directors should be able to assign a certain amount of their funding to riskier, innovative ideas, as well as to tried-and-true best practices.

In addition, we may need to raise the evaluation bar—to determine the level of response to a given approach, which is a more accurate measure of whether the program as a whole achieved the desired outcome.

When foundations fund creative, new ideas and also have the foresight to fund reasonably rigorous program evaluations, only then are new best practices born. It is with the realization of the lifecycle of ideas that this may be the best path to keep the art of practice alive and well.