Christensen@Five

In the first full five years of our new mission and geographic focus (2004- 2008), The Christensen Fund provided approximately 650 grants totaling over $50 million as we explored this new approach to our work with our grantees and other partners.  We grew rapidly in staff from a handful of individuals to nearly 30 people in nine countries, and the budget grew five fold.

Exploratory and bottom up processes that are flush with the joy of growth are rich creative times, and they are necessarily followed by a time for reflection, learning, and integration.  Therefore 2009 has been designated a year of internal reflection and evaluation which we are dubbing, “Christensen@Five”, an effort intended to help strengthen, deepen and focus our work internally, and to provide materials that we can use together with our grantees and allies to better explain our approach to interested parties around the world.

Christensen@Five will involve a wide range of activities at staff and board level as well as together with grantees and other stakeholders.  It will mix media, minds and mentalities and focus on how well we have met our mission.  We shall convene grantees wherever possible, expose ourselves to artistic interpretation, and crunch databases.  Our focus will be on understanding the consequences of our work.  We say “consequences” rather than “impact” because we recognize that we live in a complex unpredictable world where nothing stays still waiting for us to neatly change it, and where planned linear change is unusual.

One component of this reflection process will involve external evaluation, both through a survey of our 2007-2008 grantees by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, and through a review of our work by consultants Janis Alcorn and Nonette Royo.  These evaluations will focus on understanding how well Christensen has functioned as an organization in the service of our mission, grantees and stewards, and explore thinking about how we can go forward.  This is NOT an evaluation process of individual grantees, staff, or regional and global programs.

By this note I encourage all of you to share freely your thoughts, criticisms and learnings with us at this exciting time.  Christensen staff and board hope that through these efforts we shall find ways to enhance our effectiveness to realize the delicious mission with which we have been charged.

Ken Wilson

Executive Director

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Last Revision Date: 5/21/09