Field Notes and Follow-Up

The site visit is not completed until you have shared the field notes with your colleagues and placed them in the file. The term field notes implies a precision that the article itself only rarely possesses. Unless a foundation has a specific format for field notes (which few do), the style is left to you, and the result is as close as foundations come to Maoism (at least in the sense of “letting a thousand flowers bloom”). There are a number of effective ways to organize field notes, but perhaps it is best to start this discussion with a couple of methods to avoid.

The first method might be described as verbosity tempered by extraneous detail. This typically consists of a virtually verbatim transcript of every conversation held during the visit, including those with cab drivers, with details provided on every event, including a synopsis of plane flights. Copious detail and irrelevant information serve no one well. These kinds of notes do not provide a usable record for the project file, and bore readers long before they can extract useful information. They bring to mind Truman Capote's assessment of Jack Kerouac's work: “That's not writing—it's typing!”

The second method to avoid goes to the other extreme. It might be called the Joe Friday approach—an outline on a diet—which raises the laconic to an art form. Such field notes can be paraphrased as follows: “Arrived. Discussed. Succeeded. Left.” The first method drowns information in trivia, the second desiccates important information. Neither type does the intended job of the field notes, which are meant to document the site visit and to persuade others of the value of the project.

How then should field notes be organized? If the visit itself was brief, a simple way to organize the notes is to write a narrative of the key points discussed, in the order in which they were discussed. For a longer visit, it makes sense to lay out the key points in priority order (regardless of the actual order in which they were discussed during the visit) and then record the outcomes for each. Some program officers favor an expanded outline; others like to flesh out the story with narrative. Still others create a template that they can fill in, so that their notes for different projects have a consistent format.

However you choose to organize the notes, they need to convey certain essential information. They must demonstrate that you met all the key players and judged them capable, assessed the applying organization's capacity and found it adequate, examined the partnerships and decided they were sound, and weighed the overall risks and concluded that they were worth taking. Moreover, if the site visit is made late in the process, the field notes must be persuasive to foundation colleagues who will be deciding whether a funding document should be written. Unless you receive permission to write a funding document, the proposal will never become a grant. The field notes should close, therefore, with a brief summation of why you believe that the idea described by this project is worthy of support by the foundation and ready to be funded. The field notes are a report on the facts, but they are more than mere reporting: they also rise to the level of advocacy. For this reason alone, they should be completed soon after the visit, written crisply, and most important, written with conviction.

Finally, remember that a part of the follow-up process for a site visit is writing a letter to the applicant thanking the participants for their hospitality. This letter, as previously mentioned, should be used to manage expectations—once again reminding the applicant that funding is not assured—and also reiterating the next steps discussed at the close of the site visit. It is important to have these documented in the file should any questions arise later about what was said by whom to whom.