Foundation Impact and Reflection

All of us at The Rhode Island Foundation are committed to the idea that, as a community foundation, we will be open and transparent about our work. This Foundation supports the needs of all of Rhode Island's communities, and we want to work with many partners to improve our state. We have committed to measuring, learning from, and communicating the impact of our grant investments as clearly as possible. This will benefit all the donors who have made this Foundation what it is and all the communities we serve. With the assistance of many Rhode Islanders, we provide leadership to help solve the most pressing problems affecting our state. Take a look through these pages and let us know what you think. Thank you.

Neil D. Steinberg, president & CEO

We published our first formal Impact Report in 2010 that summarizes the Foundation's discretionary community investments in each of our six key sectors (education, health, arts and culture, community and economic development, environment, and human services) and the Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence, as well as brief reports on our other discretionary grant programs.  Download the 2009 Impact Report.  




Our 2010 Impact Report was incorporated into our 2010 Annual Report, published June 2011.
Download the full Annual Report   or
Download the 12-page impact section.

We commissioned the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to survey our grantees, as well as declined applicants, to provide us not only with current perspectives of these groups, but also with comparative data of our earlier surveys and of other foundations utilizing these CEP assessment tools. Download the 2010 Grantee Perception Report and the 2010 Applicant Perception Report.

We utilized a consultant to provide evaluation services of our Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence, established to build the capacity of nonprofit organizations so they can better achieve their missions. The two evaluations report on the effectiveness of the Initiative as a whole and on the Fidelity Investments Board Development Program. Download the INE evaluation report and Fidelity Investments board development program report.

Recent Foundation Grants

See examples of recently-funded Foundation projects.

See a complete list of the 1,341 organizations that received one or more grants from a fund at the Foundation in 2011.

Evaluation Resources

Organizations that also are interested in measuring community impact and increasing capacity are invited to check out the Resources and Assessment Tools page of the Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence section of this website.