Track record in evaluation and learning: PHF has always been interested in evaluation, with Director level leadership to progress its strategy in this area. This creates both capacity and the organisational confidence to learn from a more experimental programme and use this learning to improve and develop practice. Advice for other funders There are three key areas of learning that PHF would share with others: The need for new innovators: ‘With the world changing fast, good ideas are needed from less traditional routes, from people who can adapt their thinking to the new realities. We need “incomers” and young people’. This will not suit everyone: ‘More funders are needed in this space but it is not for everybody. It requires a greater tolerance of risk than is the norm, and grantees can need higher than average levels of support. Staff need to develop different skills for assessment and management and a different approach to due diligence’. Taking the long view: ‘You need long time horizons, which take into account the development of outstanding individuals as well as ideas, where the growth and realisation of potential may be more significant in the long-term than more concrete achievements during the period of the grant’.
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