Convening, Trust and Additionality: Insights from our 2026 Stakeholder Survey

Listening to our partners and the wider ecosystem is key to our values at Small Foundation. For the sixth year running we welcomed our partners, peer funders and other stakeholders to share their honest thoughts on our work and how they’ve experienced working with us through our stakeholder survey. This year we had 69 responses giving valuable feedback on what stakeholders think we are doing well and providing guidance on where we can do better. We were delighted to receive our highest ever Net Promoter Score of 86. The overwhelming majority of partners feel that Small Foundation supports connecting partners with others, supports social impact, listens well and represents partners’ work externally well.

Partnership

Our partners deeply appreciate their engagement with the Small Foundation team.

• 82% of partners found SF partnership manager support helpful or very helpful.
• 40% of respondents indicated that they were satisfied with their partnership with Small Foundation, requesting no changes, while others requested more peer-to-peer networking / learning events, introductions to other funders or investors and increased financial support.
• The survey found a strong alignment between stakeholders’ and Small Foundation values, strategy and mission.

Convening

According to the survey, convening is one of Small Foundation’s core strengths and came out strongly as the top theme for what stakeholders felt Small Foundation is doing well. In addition to appreciation for Small Foundation’s annual Partner Gathering, the most-repeated ask across free-text response questions is for more opportunities to connect.

Additionality of our funding

• The survey showed positive indications that our funding is additional in unlocking additional resources (72% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed).
• 92% of partners agreed that SF’s support enabled increased impact.
• Partners also noted an appreciation for the flexibility of our funding.

Influence

Respondents recognised Small Foundation’s influence around system change, organisational development and network mindsets. These areas of influence were also noted in the 2025 stakeholder survey, showing their importance to both Small Foundation and our partners and peers. There were also requests for Small Foundation to share more openly around our strategy and our own organisational learning.

Suggestions for improvement

Despite a strong majority of respondents (68%) responding positively, the speed of our due diligence and contracting procedures (including AML) is noted as having scored the lowest in those sections of the survey.  Anti-money laundering (AML) checks were a new procedure we added to our investment process this year. Respondents’ experiences were generally positive with 86% of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing that the AML process was clear.

Non-financial support

The communications and Circle Generation-delivered non-financial support (NFS) continued to receive strong positive feedback. The suggestions are requests for more: broadening participation, engaging on enabling environment issues, increasing the frequency of convenings etc.

Next steps

To action the suggestions from our stakeholders, we are looking at ways to:

• Continue to do more around convening, including creating more chances for partners to connect with each other and not just at the Partner Gathering.
• Lean into our system change focus, as people value it and want to hear more.
• Clarify due diligence and set out timelines and criteria earlier.
• Share our own strategy and learning more openly and continue to promote our impact report.
• Continue to share out and highlight the partner non-financial support we offer and how it strengthens partners’ work and approaches.
• Add a simple follow-up step after the Partner Gathering to help turn connections into action.
• Continue to reflect and strengthen our partners’ experience in working with us.

We are so thankful to our partners and peers who took the time to deeply engage with the survey and provide such valuable feedback.

About the Survey Respondents

Relationship with Small Foundation

Type of organisation

Where they’re based