How Do Gates Foundation’s Executives Become Better Listeners?

After getting an earful from grantees about the challenges they face in working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jeffrey S. Raikes, its chief executive, is plotting a strategy to turn the grant maker into a better listener and communicator.

Earlier this week, Mr. Raikes held conference calls for grantees to discuss the findings of an anonymous survey of groups that receive money from Gates. He also outlined plans for how the foundation could become more responsive and easier to work with.

People on the calls expressed appreciation for the chance to speak with the foundation’s senior leadership, but a few asked questions that reflected obstacles they have faced.

One grantee said he simply wanted to know which program officer oversaw his grant and to be able to ask questions of that person via e-mail.

“That’s a very important part of the feedback,” said Mr. Raikes, who was joined on the call by the three top executives who oversee Gates’ work in global health, global development, and U.S. programs. “We’ll be following up with you immediately.”

Mr. Raikes, who has led the foundation since the fall of 2008, outlined several immediate steps the foundation is taking, such as providing an orientation for new grantees and holding more conference calls of the sort conducted this week. But he said he will also be drafting a longer-term plan to make Gates more accessible and a better partner to its grantees.

The size of the Gates fund—its assets are larger than the GDP of some countries—will make that effort a difficult one.

“They are much bigger than all the rest, so it’s just a more complicated problem,” said Jeffrey Sturchio, president of the Global Health Council, a membership group that receives money from Gates.

Mr. Sturchio and other nonprofit officials contacted by The Chronicle said they have a very positive relationship with the foundation and haven’t experienced the sorts of difficulties many grantees complained about in the survey, which did not disclose the identities of those polled in an effort to encourage candor.

But asked to suggest what steps the Gates fund might take, the nonprofit officials offered a few thoughts.

Mark Wier, senior director of corporate and foundation relations at the International Rescue Committee, said he hasn’t experienced the turnover in program officers that many grantees said had been a problem for them.

But he said building strong relationships between program officers and grantees, such as the one he has at Gates, is the best way to elicit honest feedback from grantees—something that is often missing in the warped power dynamic between foundations and grant recipients.

Peter Hero, vice president for development and university relations at the California Institute of Technology, said that the more collegial contact Gates can have with grantees, the better, to help avoid what he called the virtually inevitable “syndrome” at foundations in which “grant applicants become an annoyance, almost.”

Colleen Gregerson, deputy director for new business development with Population Services International, who participated in the grantee call with Gates, said she was pleased to learn that the foundation was considering how it might engage grantees in further discussions about more fundamental changes.

“That would have been my suggestion,” she said, “that they reach out, maybe in a more qualitative way, to grantees as well, to help them solve some of the problems. It is, and should, be a partnership.”

What steps do you think the Gates foundation should take?