The Learning Philanthropy Framework
A Shared Language for Learning Philanthropies
What It Means to Be a Learning Philanthropy
Explore the Framework
Explore three Learning Practices and three Accelerating Conditions that together show what it takes to become a Learning Philanthropy.
Then use the Self-Assessment to see where your foundation is today, celebrate its strengths, spot important gaps, and decide where to focus next.
Click on different elements to learn more
What your foundation does to learn—internally, with partners, and across the ecosystems it hopes to influence.
What helps your foundation’s Learning Practices take root and thrive—committed leadership, a strong learning culture, and the right structures and resources.
Internal Learning Processes
Explores how your foundation turns information into insight and insight into action.
- Clarify Strategy
- Cultivate Systems Awareness
- Curate Evidence
- Sensemake & Take Action
Learning With Partners
Explores how your foundation turns funding relationships into learning relationships.
- Reflect & Adapt Together
- Learn From Feedback
- Design & Award Grants
Ecosystem Learning
Explores how your foundation turns learning beyond its walls and direct partners into collective momentum for systems change.
- Strengthen Relationships & Networks
- Steward Knowledge
- Convene
- Innovate & Influence
Learning Leadership
Explores how your foundation’s leaders model, champion, and sustain a culture of learning.
- Embody Learning
- Commit to Learning
- Encourage Learning
Structure & Resources
Explores how your foundation structures its people, resources, and decision-making to support learning.
- Active Staff for Learning
- Invest in Learning
- Clarify Decision-Making
Learning Culture
Explores how your foundation nurtures the habits, mindsets, and behaviors that sustain learning.
- Value Learning Mindsets
- Create Psychological Safety
- Strengthens Foundations for Learning
Evidence of Impact
Learning isn’t just nice to have. Research connects strong learning practices with better relationships, stronger decision-making, and a greater ability to adapt.
91% of nonprofit leaders say that transparent funders—those that share what they are learning and how they assess impact—are more helpful to their organizations and easier to build strong relationships with.
— Center for Effective Philanthropy, 2013
When people feel safe to speak up and learn, organizations benefit from higher staff engagement, motivation, and satisfaction, ultimately leading to stronger organizational outcomes.
— Edmondson, 1999 & 2018
Foundations that embed learning across their work report improvements in grantmaking, including better decision-making, stronger critical reflection, and a greater ability to adapt to evidence and changing contexts.
— Price et al., 2019; Holley & Parkhurst, 2019
How Foundations Are Becoming Learning Philanthropies
Too often, philanthropy starts over. Hard-won lessons get lost as people move on, priorities shift, and leadership changes.
The pieces below capture what foundations are learning on their journeys to becoming Learning Philanthropies—so others can build on what came before instead of reinventing the wheel.
Explore the patterns emerging across their stories—and how they might inform your foundation’s journey.
How to Show—and Tell—Leaders Why Learning Matters
If you work in organizational learning, you probably don’t need convincing that it matters or that philanthropies should invest more in it. But making the case for that with leadership can be another story, and understandably so.
Where To Start? Three On-Ramps to Becoming a Learning Philanthropy
Not all parts of the framework are equally catalytic. Based on our work with early adopters, we've identified three common entry points from foundations who are already well on their way to becoming a learning philanthropy.
Why Every Learning Philanthropy Needs Six Learning Roles
One of the biggest misconceptions we see in philanthropy is that organizational learning belongs to one person. Hire a Chief Learning Officer. Problem solved.
Which of These Eight Learning Philanthropy Archetypes Is Your Foundation?
The 10-minute Learning Philanthropy Archetype Quiz reveals how learning tends to happen inside your foundation—how it is structured, encouraged, rewarded, and talked about—and offers a practical starting point for strengthening it.
From Building to Embedding in Reflection & Adaptation
Read Laude's StoryLaudes’ Advice
Treat recurring tensions as data. They're often pointing to something important.
From Initiating to Thriving in Curating Evidence
Read Co-Impact's StoryCo-Impact's Advice
Integrate learning into existing rhythms. Don't create parallel systems.
From Initiating to Building in Shared Definitions of Learning
Read Rockefeller's StoryRockefeller's Advice
You don't need perfect agreement. Start with a shared vocabulary.
From Building to Embedding in Clarifying Decision-Making
Read Their StoryFoundation for Healthy St. Pete's Advice
Keep it playful. People do their best thinking when conversations feel safe and energizing.
Origin & Evidence
By the Field, For the Field
After years of working alongside learning leaders, one question kept surfacing at The Convive Collective: What does good learning actually look like in philanthropy?
That question sparked the Learning Philanthropy Framework. Six pioneering philanthropies then helped put it to the test—refining it, strengthening it, and bringing it to life through practice.
How It Was Built
Literature Review
Decades of organizational learning research offered plenty of great thinking—but nothing designed around the unique realities of philanthropy.
Interviews
Conversations with more than 50 learning leaders surfaced what helps learning thrive, what gets in the way, and what the field still needed.
Co-Design Retreat
Pioneering philanthropies came together in person to challenge the Framework, sharpen its language, and make sure it reflected real life inside foundations.
Ongoing Pilot
The Framework & Self-Assessment continue to evolve. Foundations put them into practice, share what they learn, and help make them stronger with every new pilot.
Funded & Built With:
Book a Discovery Call
Not sure where to begin? Thinking about using the Framework with your whole team? Book a free discovery call with The Convive Collective to ask questions, hear how other foundations are using it, and find the right starting point for your foundation.
Learn Alongside Other Learning Leaders
Join the Learning Philanthropy Retreat & Cohort
Big organizational change is hard to make alone—and much more fun with the right people beside you.
Each six-month experience begins with an immersive three-day retreat. A small group of learning leaders comes together to compare strategies, tackle real organizational challenges, and design learning strategies tailored to their foundation.
From there, one-on-one coaching and peer-learning workshops help turn those strategies into practice—while the lessons emerging across the cohort contribute to what the wider field understands about why learning matters.