Listening and Responding Lead to Better Outcomes: Building the Evidence Base for High-Quality Listening Practice

A growing number of grantmaking institutions (GMIs) recognize that listening to communities in which they invest—especially those to, and most affected by, the challenges being addressed—is crucial to achieve their equity goals. Despite investments and intent to listen, there is a gap in implementation. Genuine listening for equity requires that foundation leaders view the shift as adaptive and not merely technical. A technical change entails adoption of specified methods whereas adaptive changes require a fundamental shift in values and beliefs. Solely implementing new “listening” techniques without shifting values and beliefs could leave gaps between intention and action. But current resources on listening for equity stop short of describing the necessary mindsets and how they manifest when applied in practice. In this paper, we provide a description of three mindsets and related practices GMIs can use for authentic listening, offering the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving as a case study.