In its first six years, WomenStrong International has invested $15 million to nurture learning and lift up a growing community of organizations that center their work on the real-life needs and experiences of women and girls in urban areas around the world.

We view trust-based grantmaking as both an equity issue and an essential component to ensuring our partners can take strategic risks. We aim to create an environment where our grantee partners can inform our programs and let us know what’s working and what’s not, with their funded projects. Our recent evaluations have shown that our approach is paying off, even as we fine-tune and improve.

Here’s what we’ve learned along the way.

Building trust starts at the recruitment phase. Currently, we have a closed application process that begins by identifying organizations that fit our programmatic criteria and seem like a good fit for our peer-driven Learning Lab.

We then reach out to hold exploratory conversations with a potential grantee. It’s a chance to get to know each other, and we have an opportunity to provide information on our grantmaking program and the expectations and benefits of the Learning Lab.

In a recent evaluation, our partners reported that, because WomenStrong staff invested time and care to understand what they do, they were quickly able to begin building an understanding of WomenStrong and assess if the partnership would be a good fit for them. One grantee partner noted that, though there were a lot of calls early on, “we got to connect in person right away, and kind of experience their values.”

Read the full article about building trust with grantees by Denise Mishiwiec at PEAK Grantmaking.