How can philanthropy move from feedback to feed-forward to reimagine grantee support?
A Funder Ready to Listen Deeper
In late 2024, Okta for Good — the social impact and sustainability arm of Okta — approached Third Plateau with a clear commitment: they wanted to understand how to better support their global network of grantees in a way that was rigorous, strategic, and most importantly, grantee-informed.
Founded in 2016, Okta for Good leverages philanthropy, product, employees, and expertise to build a safely connected world where everyone can belong and thrive. O4G supports organizations across 15 countries through portfolios focused on Digital Equity, Tech for Good, and Climate Action. Beyond financial grants, they invest in capacity strengthening across technology and security, financial sustainability, wellness and employee resilience, and leadership development.
While O4G had previously conducted a “listening tour” to hear from grantees, Victor Cordon, Director of Social Impact, and Keenan Harrell, Program Lead for Philanthropy, recognized the need to go deeper—gathering insights that were both rigorous and low-burden while reflecting the diversity and complexity of their global partners. They turned to Third Plateau to design an assessment that would center partner voices and lay the groundwork for more thoughtful, responsive philanthropy.
Building a Truly Grantee-Centered Process
O4G needed to identify opportunities to strengthen grantee capacity across a diverse global portfolio while delivering actionable insights that would help them prioritize the most pressing needs. Achieving this required navigating significant complexity:
- Designing culturally competent research that would resonate across 15 countries with varying contexts, languages, and organizational realities
- Honoring trust-based philanthropy principles by making grantees co-creators of the assessment process, not just subjects of study
- Balancing rigor with accessibility to ensure high-quality data without overburdening already stretched nonprofit partners
- Moving beyond surface-level feedback to uncover emergent needs and nuanced insights about capacity strengthening effectiveness
This work demanded a trust-based, co-creative process that could navigate strategic complexity while honoring the voices and realities of global partners.
When grantees help shape philanthropic strategy, the results are smarter, more targeted, and more impactful. This assessment proved that centering partner voices isn’t just good values, it’s good strategy.
A Roadmap for Responsive, Strategic Support
The engagement surfaced valuable insights across all four capacity strengthening areas, revealing both affirmations and challenges:
Technology and Security: Organizations identified tech grants for hardware and software upgrades, donor databases, and research tools as top priorities. AI adoption and data management emerged as key challenges requiring data-driven solutions.
Financial Sustainability: Grantees reported struggling with funding diversification and need support building more resilient financial models—especially critical for smaller organizations feeling stretched in the current landscape.
Wellness and Employee Resilience: Staff burnout, capacity constraints, and limited professional development opportunities surfaced as widespread concerns requiring urgent attention.
Leadership Development: Organizations lack resources to build strong leadership pipelines and invest in ongoing growth, with peer learning and support opportunities identified as high-value interventions.
Critically, the assessment revealed that past capacity strengthening efforts have worked. Many partners reported meaningful growth from O4G’s investments. It also highlighted that regular communication about opportunities is essential for grantees to take full advantage of available support.
The process equipped Okta for Good with actionable insights to prioritize investments that align with genuine partner needs while demonstrating a replicable model for trust-based, grantee-centered assessment.
Ultimately, this partnership showed what’s possible when funders slow down, listen deeply, and invest in processes that reflect their values — creating a model for responsive philanthropy that others can build upon.
Interested in partnering with us to design grantee-informed, trust-based solutions that drive deeper impact? Reach out to start the conversation.
