The Skillman Foundation

Since 2003, The Skillman Foundation has partnered with the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to gather confidential feedback through the Grantee Perception Report. The report examines community impact, grantmaking processes, and funder-grantee relationships, benchmarking The Skillman Foundation against similar peers, the field, and our past performance.

Our practices shape the experiences of our grant partners and the impact we can achieve together. Candid feedback helps us stay accountable and focused on improvement. Each cycle, we reflect on the findings, develop action plans, and apply what we learn to strengthen our work and our partners’ experiences with the Foundation. This blog shares an in depth look at what we learned from the 2025 Grantee Perception Report and how it impacts our work. Looking for the highlights? Watch this short video message from us:

How the data was collected

Between March and April 2025, CEP surveyed more than 200 organizations that had active grants with The Skillman Foundation in 2024. A total of 138 responded, for a 49% response rate. CEP’s analysis confirmed that respondents represent our overall grant partner population.

This year, feedback was collected across all our grantmaking programs, including core Partnership grants, Skillman Youth Council (formerly President’s Youth Council) awardees, and the President’s Discretionary Fund. Each of these grantmaking programs has a unique structure and expectations. For example, the President’s Discretionary Fund is designed to be quick, responsive, and involve fewer staff interactions. Expanding the survey to include these grants allowed us to better assess how our grantmaking intentions align with practice.

It’s also important to note that our 2024 grantmaking happened in a period of transition as we launched our new People Powered Education strategy amid a shifting political and funding landscape.

We are grateful to every organization that took the time to share feedback.

What’s working?

Responses from our grant partners point to areas of strength and progress:

Continued community and policy impact.
Partners continue to view The Skillman Foundation as a credible, trusted leader in Metro Detroit and beyond. Ratings for our impact on public policy remain higher than typical in CEP’s dataset, and partners report that we understand the needs of the communities they serve. On a custom question, respondents rated our credibility and trust across communities above 6 out of 7, on average.

More flexible funding.
Compared with 2022, more partners in 2024 received unrestricted funding and Partnership grants were larger and more likely to span multiple years. This trend continues today.

Streamlined processes.
Median time spent on the Foundation’s grant requirements fell from 19 hours reported in 2022 to 10 hours reported in 2025, among the lowest-burden funders in CEP’s national dataset. Partners report that our application and selection processes require an appropriate level of effort for the funding received.

Clearer connection to Foundation goals.
More grant partners reported understanding how their funded work connects to The Skillman Foundation’s broader vision, an encouraging sign as People Powered Education evolves.

What do we need to improve?

The data also reveals opportunities for growth:

Impact of strategic transitions.
The early phase of the new strategy brought transitions that were felt by our partners. About one-third of respondents report their main contact at the Foundation had changed in the past six months, a higher proportion than most other funders in CEP’s dataset. As one respondent shared, “Over the past couple of years, we feel that we have not had a point of contact as our grant managers have shifted.”

Clarifying success.
While partners see how their work connects to our broader efforts, a shared understanding of the Foundation’s emerging People Powered Education strategy—particularly funding priorities and definitions of success—remained in its early stages. On a custom question, grant partners provided average ratings of just above a 5 out of 7 for the clarity of communication around People Powered Education’s funding priorities and what success looks like for the new strategy.

Deepening relationships across all grant types.
Partners with regular staff contact and site visits report stronger experiences and impact. While most Partnership grants have periodic contact, fewer than half received a site visit.

Support beyond the grant.
Partners value connections, learning opportunities, and facilitated collaboration. Eighty percent of Partnership grant partners reported receiving at least one form of assistance beyond the grant, a higher than typical proportion in the CEP dataset. However, many requested additional structured opportunities for capacity building, peer learning, and connections to other funders.

How will this feedback be used?

Data is only as good as the use made of it.

To start, we will continue to do the things our partners indicated are working.

Continued community and policy impact.
With new team members, our Policy and Ground Building staff are just getting started. We are also building grantmaking strategies and portfolios around Data & Learning and Media & Narrative to support the conditions that enable education changemaking. We expect to see more growth in community and policy impact as our grantmaking develops.

More flexible funding.
We will continue to provide funding that responds to the challenges our partners are working to address. This is an acknowledgment of the need for funding that is consistent, supporting our partners to do their critical work.

Streamlined processes.
There has been a growing emphasis in the philanthropic sector to make funding processes more accessible, providing greater clarity and simplicity for partners. The Skillman Foundation is similarly focused. Our Grants Management team is continuing its work to redesign our application and reporting processes for greater partner ease.

Clearer connection between grant partner work and Foundation goals.
Our People Powered Education strategy is dynamic and meant to be collaborative. As it develops, we want to be in partnership with others across the education ecosystem to achieve the shared goal of an equitable and excellent education for all Detroit students. Our annual Education Changemakers Summit is just one way that we will work to better connect grant partners to our strategy goals.

We will also address those areas where growth is needed:

Increased connections with partnership managers and site visits.
We are committed to ensuring that grant partners feel connected to us, know the specific staff person supporting their grant, and see us more. Partners should expect regular check-ins and increased opportunities to connect with us and each other.

Shared learning and feedback from partners.
We are a learning institution that is committed to learning with and from our partners. We will continue to seek feedback and lessons from our partners in a variety of ways.

Increased use of our tools for changemaking.
We look for ways to support our partners beyond grant funding. This includes using our voice and influence to support youth, public education, the nonprofit sector, and the city of Detroit. Even more, we look for opportunities to bring our partners’ voices to the forefront, to have them seated at decision-making tables, and to help them forge relationships and partnerships with others. Partners can expect more opportunities to convene, connect, and collaborate across the education ecosystem.

Our accountability to this data

We are proud of the progress reflected in this year’s findings, and we are also clear about where we need to continue growing.

Guided by this feedback and CEP’s formal recommendations, we are committing to:

• Clear communication about our strategy and what success looks like.
• Setting expectations across the grantmaking process, including site visits, staff transitions, and non-monetary support.
• More clearly communicating the purpose of our President’s Discretionary and Skillman Youth Council grantmaking programs and what grant recipients can expect.

Feedback is a gift. It helps us sharpen our practice, strengthen our partnerships, and advance our shared commitment to young people and communities. We are excited to start the year with this valuable information and the opportunity to continue to improve in our service to Detroit youth.