The vision of the Freddie Mac Foundation reflects our commitment to making a measurable difference in the lives of children and their families. We have identified specific outcomes that define what change we anticipate as a result of our grantmaking: Seven outcomes for direct service projects and capacity building requests, and three outcomes for public awareness and education projects. These outcomes also form the core of our guidelines and provide a clear direction for those seeking funding from the Freddie Mac Foundation. For general operating support, all programs offered must meet at least one or more of the Foundation’s outcomes. (The outcomes
are listed in the description of each funding
priority.)
Targets
It is also our belief that organizations have the greatest potential of achieving positive outcomes for children and families when clearly stated, measurable targets are in place to guide their work. High performing nonprofit organizations have discovered that nothing helps to increase performance more than targets set for their program activities. Targets are defined as tangible gain for the people served-for example, vulnerable families finding stable housing and moving to self-sufficiency, children with rising grades and/or test scores, youth entering higher education or getting good jobs, or children being adopted. Setting targets and collecting data about results is also one of the best ways to tell a compelling story about an organization's work. To further clarify what we mean by targets, they are:
Clear commitments that organizations make and the Foundation
accepts as constituting the return on our grant investment —
they are not just statements of aspiration or hope.
Verifiable — they represent a change in condition or behavior
that can be objectively assessed.
Set at a reasonable level — they should reflect what the
organization believes can be achieved even if everything does
not go perfectly.
Set relative to a baseline — a target of getting 40 young
people into college is not meaningful until you know how many
of these young people would have gone to college in any event.
Another key aspect of our outcome approach is the use of milestones
to track progress towards the target. Milestones reflect the steps
that participants must make if they are to move from their present
circumstance to the target specified. Milestones shift the focus
from what you as an implementing group do (activity focused), to
what your participants gain from the activities (outcome focused).
These key steps of progress are often best profiled as a funnel
with the last milestone being the same as the target.
By tracking milestones, organizations have a much clearer idea of their progress. They then can adjust activities along the way to better hit the checkpoints needed to achieve the desired results.
Applicants to the Foundation must submit targets and milestones that address one or more of the Foundation's outcomes. The grant applications provide additional information on the outcome approach and include a sample Proposal Summary Chart, which must accompany every proposal.
