The Impact Telephone Game: What Gets Lost Along the Way?

What happens between what communities experience, what organizations implement, and what funders ultimately see? As priorities and results move from proposals to implementation to M&E and funder reporting, complexity can get simplified, incentives can shape what gets communicated, and important realities can disappear along the way. Through an interactive “Impact Telephone Game,” participants will experience these handoffs firsthand, then bring funder and grassroots leader perspectives together to examine where information gets distorted – and how funding and reporting relationships could better reflect what is actually happening on the ground.

Together, we'll explore questions such as:

• What gets lost between community reality and what ultimately reaches funders?
• How do funding, measurement, and reporting expectations shape what gets communicated, or left out?
• How could funders and implementers create more honest feedback loops between proposals, program delivery, and reporting?