When we launched the William Penn Foundation’s new grantmaking programs last year, we set out to meet specific objectives within each program over the next ten years. This was a new practice for us. For the first time, we are holding ourselves accountable – internally and externally – to meeting specific and measurable targets.
Stating our objectives clearly, and sharing progress on them, is an essential way in which we’re demonstrating our commitment to our grantmaking values that guide us to behave in a transparent fashion and to share our learning. We recognize that this foundation, like all foundations, receives preferential tax status based on our commitment to use our funds for the good of our community and country. And so we want our community and country to understand how funds are contributing to specific improvements and opportunities that, during our strategic planning, we heard are important to residents across our region.
In total, we have 34 objectives that we are seeking to advance. The objectives cover a wide range of issues. As some examples, our funding is designed to advance improvements in the percentage of children enrolled in high quality early learning, the number of trees in the city, increases in voter participation, individuals trained for high quality jobs, number of young people engaged in arts education programs, and many more. The large majority of these objectives will be measured by specific quantitative indicators and targets that we hope to reach within the next ten years.
We are very clear that it is not the Foundation that will make it possible to reach these important targets. Hundreds of non-profit organizations across our region will achieve these outcomes. We are fortunate to be able to support them to do that, and we want to be able to show the progress that we are making as a region.
With that in mind, we’re excited to share that we have begun updating our website to include baseline data about some of these objectives. Look, for example, at the information related to our objective to help the city reduce illegal dumping: you can see that the City gathered less illegal dumping in 2024 than in 2023 and, at the same time, got fewer complaints about illegal dumping. Or look at our objective related to strengthening the teacher pipeline: the data there show the current percentage of certified teachers working in Philadelphia schools and the mis-alignment between the racial composition of the teacher and student populations. Poke around to see what data may be posted for the objectives most related to your work. You can find data on the website pages for 11 of our objectives so far, and more will be posted in the months ahead.
In figuring out how we would track progress for each objective, we sought to learn and understand whether our funding was contributing to the desired outcomes while minimizing the costs of collecting data or burden on grantees. We prioritized using public data whenever possible and only sought data from grantees that they would likely be collecting already. Is every metric the perfect picture of what we’re hoping to accomplish? Admittedly, no. In seeking to minimize the costs and burdens of data collection, we want to share relevant information and not let the “perfect be the enemy of the good.” Even with limitations, every metric that we are posting helps us to know whether we are advancing the stated objectives and expanding access to opportunities in our region.
For most of the objectives where we have posted data, we are identifying the baseline data at this point. It is too soon to show the trends to which the Foundation’s funds have contributed. Throughout 2026, and regularly thereafter, we will be adding additional data for all objectives so that we can all see the progress we are making as a region. As Chinese philosopher Laozi wrote, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And this is our first step publicly tracking data on a ten-year journey. We hope you will check in periodically on the website to see how the journey is progressing.
