Closing Summary Statement

Once all of the reports are in and read, and once you have settled on a course of action—to renew or not to renew—it becomes desirable to document the closing of the file (or at least the closing of this phase of the project, should funding for it be renewed). Some foundations do not require such a step, but others do, under a variety of names. I will use the term closing summary statement in this book, but other terms, such as program officer final assessment, would do just as well.

In essence, the closing summary statement is meant to achieve three things. First, it should communicate your assessment of the key outcomes of the project, including any products it may have produced. Second, it should cite authorities for these judgments. Third, and most important, it should consider the lessons learned from this project and apply them in order to make recommendations for future action, whether for this project specifically, for the foundation's programming in general, or for policymaking.

These are all fairly straightforward propositions, excepting the third one. Some program officers tend to shy away from the advocacy implied in making recommendations for future action. Their distaste is revealed in tepid or weak suggestions. This failure to market strong project outcomes is an error that could cost the grantee, and the field, dearly. You should write a recommendation for future action in much the same way as a funding document: there must be clarity and enthusiasm, and the emphasis must be placed on the opportunity offered to the foundation by its renewing grant support for the project or by pursuing other approaches to programming suggested by this project. You should also make the case with adequate documentation to lend substance to the enthusiasm. It should be a clarion call to action, not a whimper for additional money.

In the creation of every closing summary statement, you will encounter a vexing conundrum. Unlike a funding document or a set of field notes, which focus on future activities, the closing summary statement focuses on things that have already happened. In writing it, then, you are essentially rating your own performance as a grantmaker. And because your superiors in the organization will be reviewing the closing summary statement, it becomes a de facto performance review document. Hence the conundrum: the closing summary statement is valuable only if it is filled out candidly, yet too much candor might come back to haunt you later. You may also wonder, What if my colleagues are turning in glowing reports in all of their closing summary statements, and I am the only one honestly reporting problems?

In tackling this conundrum, one school of thought descends from Oliver Cromwell's admonition to a portraitist to paint him “warts and all.” Be bluntly honest, say program officers of this persuasion, and leave performance review to the foundation's officers. Another school says, in effect, that program officers should not be expected to braid the rope that will later be used to hang them. Devotees of this school therefore resolutely imitate the project directors of their grants and accentuate the positive in their closing summary statements.

Perhaps the best response steers a course between these two extremes but veers far closer to the warts-and-all approach than to the “praise the Lord and braid no rope” camp. It is a bad policy to repeatedly claim perfectly satisfactory outcomes for every project. Officers soon note this Pollyannaish approach and begin to doubt the credibility of the creator of such consistently glowing closing summary statements. The truth is always the best policy, but it makes sense to smooth off the bluntness. For example, how one chooses words becomes very important. If a project did not achieve all of its goals, you should note that fact in the closing summary statement, but you need not describe it as a “failure,” “breakdown,” or “disaster.” If the project achieved 90 percent of its goals, note that first, before candidly discussing the 10 percent shortfall. Give explicit credit for all the project's accomplishments and explain the missteps. Take great care to make the reporting emphasis proportional to the outcome. For example, if the project was 75 percent successful and 25 percent less successful, then you should spend about three-quarters of the report on the successful items. Dwelling endlessly on what went wrong can make even the most effective project appear to be a dud. There is no reason why honesty must be tactless; candid assessments need not be wrapped in “red flags.”