Reporting Resource Hub
Reimagining Grant Reporting for Equity and Impact
Traditional reporting systems no longer serve the sector — or the communities we seek to uplift. This hub brings together ideas, templates, frameworks, and examples that shift reporting from surveillance to solidarity.
For too long, grantees have been burdened by cumbersome, compliance-focused reporting requirements that extract time and energy without providing meaningful value. The Reporting Resource Hub challenges these outdated practices by offering innovative approaches that center community wisdom, honor diverse ways of knowing, and prioritize learning over accountability.
Created through collaborative efforts with funders, nonprofits, and community leaders, these resources aim to transform how we measure and share impact. By reimagining reporting as a tool for mutual understanding rather than oversight, we can build stronger relationships between funders and grantees while amplifying the voices of those doing the work.
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Overview
  • The Challenge: The current grant reporting system is widely seen as burdensome, ineffective, and misaligned with equity goals. Nonprofits spend countless hours completing paperwork that rarely informs decision-making, while funders receive standardized responses that don't capture true impact or community context.
  • Our Vision: This hub calls for a shift toward trust-based philanthropy, equity-centered practices, and alternative reporting methods (OAR — Oral and Alternate Reporting). We envision a future where reporting strengthens relationships, centers community wisdom, and catalyzes learning for both funders and grantees.
  • Our Approach: We believe in centering nonprofit voices, reducing harm, and using reporting as a space for reflection, learning, and partnership. By reimagining reporting as a collaborative practice rather than a compliance exercise, we can build systems that honor diverse ways of knowing and sharing impact.
  • Key Principles: Our recommendations are guided by values of transparency, mutual accountability, power-sharing, and respect for community expertise. We recognize that meaningful change requires examining how power operates in philanthropy and taking concrete steps to redistribute it.
  • Practical Solutions: This hub offers templates, case studies, frameworks, and practical tools that both funders and nonprofits can implement immediately to transform their reporting relationships and practices.
Problem of the Status Quo
"The grantee report as we know it is dead. Or at least on life support."
Compliance Theater
Reporting often functions as compliance theater, extracting data without deep engagement or utility.
Power Imbalance
Funders hold power over process, timing, and formats, while grantees bear the burden of irrelevant or repetitive requests.
Historical Context
Historic roots in industrial philanthropy created a culture of due diligence, "objectivity," and detached analysis, accountability and compliance.
Key Reads:
Equity & Power-Shifting
Acknowledgment
Recognizing historical inequities
Partnership
Shared decision-making
Redistribution
Shifting resources and control
Reimagining reporting means redistributing power, not just collecting better data. Historical inequities and colonial legacies in philanthropy must be acknowledged and addressed. Reporting practices must reflect and support equity goals, not undermine them.
Key Reads:
Oral & Alternate Reporting (OAR)
Oral and Alternate Reporting (OAR) represents a paradigm shift in how funders and grantees share information and build relationships. By moving beyond traditional written reports, OAR creates more accessible, equitable, and meaningful exchanges that honor diverse communication styles and organizational capacities.
Conversational
Direct dialogue between funders and grantees
Cohort Reports
Collaborative reporting across organizations
Shared Materials
Using existing documents
Verbal / Oral Check-ins
Regular informal updates
Key Benefits of OAR
OAR builds relationship, reduces burden, and increases accessibility. This approach deepens mutual understanding between funders and grantees, creates opportunities for real-time feedback and support, and respects the time and capacity constraints many community-based organizations face.
By eliminating excessive paperwork and bureaucratic requirements, OAR allows nonprofits to focus more energy on their mission-critical work while still maintaining accountability and transparency with funders.
OAR in Practice
Innovative funders are already implementing OAR approaches with positive results:
  • Maddie's Fund Zoom Huddles: Regular group video calls that replace individual written reports, creating community learning opportunities
  • Libra Foundation: Conversational templates that guide meaningful discussions about progress, challenges, and learning
  • JustFund integration: Digital platforms that streamline information sharing while maintaining human connection
  • Community listening sessions: Grantee-led gatherings where multiple funders can hear updates simultaneously
  • Video/audio submissions: Recorded updates that capture voices and experiences that might be lost in written formats
Organizations implementing OAR report stronger relationships with grantees, more useful information for decision-making, and reduced administrative burden for both parties.
Getting Started with OAR
Start Here:
OAR Resource List (includes glossary links, tech tools, and articles)
Templates:
Implementation Considerations
When adopting OAR practices, funders should consider:
  • How to document conversations ethically and with consent
  • Ways to ensure accessibility for grantees with varying abilities and access to technology
  • Training staff to conduct meaningful conversations that balance flexibility with accountability
  • Creating systems to distill and share learnings across your organization
  • Communicating clear expectations to grantees about the process and purpose of OAR
Remember that transitioning to OAR doesn't mean abandoning all written documentation – rather, it means finding the right balance of methods that support authentic relationship-building while meeting essential information needs.
Grants Managers as Drivers of Change
Grants Management staff have the opportunity to align systems, policies, and practices with trust and learning.
Systems Stewards
GMs are not "back office" — they are strategic architects of grantmaking infrastructure
Relationship Brokers
Building bridges between funders and grantees through thoughtful processes
Values Enforcers
Ensuring systems, policies, and practices align with organizational values
Key Reads:
Reimaging Reporting
Transform grant reports from compliance checkboxes into meaningful learning opportunities.
Reflection
Schedule dedicated time for both grantee and funder to review progress, challenges, and unexpected outcomes without judgment.
Shared Sense-Making
Bring grantees together in quarterly learning cohorts to collectively interpret data, share insights, and identify patterns across related work. Use participatory analysis methods that honor diverse perspectives and ways of knowing.
Values-Aligned Metrics
Co-create evaluation frameworks with grantees that measure community-defined success indicators, power-shifting, and relationship health – not just quantitative outputs. Reassess metrics annually to ensure continued relevance.
Relationship-Based Accountability
Document systems-level changes like improved community agency, policy wins, and strengthened movement infrastructure. Create feedback loops that capture both immediate outcomes and contributions to long-term social change.
Reimagining grant reporting means viewing evaluation as a tool for justice rather than judgment. When funders approach learning with humility, they create space for authentic sharing of both successes and setbacks. As the Center for Effective Philanthropy notes, "The miracle is you" – the transformation happens when we shift from extractive to generative practices.
Organizations like Fund for Shared Insight have developed practical tools like Listen4Good that help funders systematically incorporate feedback from the communities they aim to serve into their decision-making processes.
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We look forward to staying connected.
"Let's give communities the power to direct what will be most impactful. Let's put them in the driver's seat to define risk, outcomes reporting, and what makes a foundation impactful." — Camryn Smith, Communities in Partnership
Tools & Action Steps
Action Steps for Funders
  1. Map your grantees' reporting journey
  1. Co-create reporting options with grantees
  1. Pilot oral reporting or written-alternative menus
  1. Build internal capacity to receive & use new formats
  1. Reflect: Do your values and practices align?
Rachel Kimber | [email protected]
Blanch Vance | [email protected]