01 · Understand
What did the spending make possible?
The work being funded, the people it reaches, the intended change, and the conditions on which that change depends.
For corporate community investment
Understand how the community work is going, and what you can say about the results.
Prova helps community-investment, CSR, and corporate foundation teams examine the information already available for a public report or a program decision. A first conversation clarifies the question, the deadline, and whether the work is feasible.
Funding a partner does not mean owning their question.
Recognizable situations
A public report and a program decision may need different answers.
- 01
The community report is due, and the claim it will carry has not yet been checked against what the files can support.
- 02
A claim written for one purpose is often asked to survive another.
- 03
A downturn is coming, and you need to establish which programs to continue when the budget is questioned.
- 04
A partner’s files would support the claim, but those files are not the company’s to use as it likes.
A corporate foundation that grantmakes like a foundation? Explore foundations
The bind
Output reporting can outrun what the evidence establishes.
Community reports run on people reached and sessions delivered because outcomes and attribution are harder, and social impact has no shared unit. Distinguish what was delivered, what changed for people or communities, and what can be attributed to the program. Each claim needs support suited to what it says.
Illustrative question — not client work
What may we say in the community report?
A useful answer starts from the files already in hand, matches each claim to the information beneath it, and marks where the information runs out.
02 · Examine
What does the information actually support?
Outputs versus observed change, missing perspectives, who compiled the figure, and the limits of claims about contribution.
03 · Choose
What would help the next report, or the next budget choice?
The strongest claim the information can honestly support, a live allocation if one is open, support a partner directs, or an uncertainty kept in view.
See how a Claims & Sources Map makes the support for each statement visible
Follow a worked example from a draft claim through the files already kept
Questions Prova can help answer
Bring the question you need answered.
Most community grants do not need a study of their own. Much of what you would need is already in the files the partners keep. Further collection is worth the cost only if it would change how well you can say the work is going, or a choice that is actually open. If measurement is to be built into how the work runs, that is a separate engagement.
What can we honestly say about how well the work is going?
- Establish the purpose before the claim travels
- Separate what was delivered from what is known about change
Evidence synthesis and claim checking
If the budget changes, which programs should we continue, adapt, or end?
- Establish the date and what would change the next step
- Commission inquiry when the findings can still inform that choice.
A live allocation
Where would support for a partner’s own learning help?
- Offer a nonprofit help with a decision it actually faces
- Let the partner direct the question and control what is shared
Partner-directed support
Does this claim need an independent reading?
- Commission review of a defined analysis, evaluation, or claim
- Receive a judgment from outside the work being reviewed
Independent review
Two different purposes
Funding the work does not mean owning the question.
The files that would support a company claim usually belong to a nonprofit partner. Agree who directs the inquiry and how the answer may be used before those files are opened.
You commission an inquiry to inform a public report or a live allocation.
The engagement names the purpose, the materials permitted, who receives the findings, and how they may be used. Partners contributing nonpublic information understand those terms.
You fund support the organization chooses and directs.
The partner chooses whether to participate, sets the question and materials, and controls what may be shared. The support serves its work. It is not a company-owned finding drawn from its files.
A downturn is a situation
When the budget is questioned, the annual report is not the same job.
Most years there is no cut. The CSR write-up, the ESG narrative, and “what the money achieved” for the board can be legitimate accountability. Agree what the findings could change: the public account of results, an open program decision, or the support a partner directs. If the answer is nothing, Prova will decline the engagement.
The company is an interested party
Confidential-to-the-company is not independence.
An independent reviewer must be separate from the work being judged and free to reach an unfavorable conclusion. Confidentiality determines who sees the findings; it does not by itself establish independence.
Discretion and responsibility
Agree what may be used, who receives the findings, and who owns the judgment.
Confidentiality, recipients, permitted uses, and any legal or safeguarding limits are established in the engagement agreement. AI assists with reading and synthesis; accountable people review consequential conclusions.
When the work needs an independent reviewer, that role must be clear. Prova does not present a review of work it helped create or substantially revise as independent.
A practical first step
Begin with how well the work is going, or with a budget choice that is actually open.
A first conversation clarifies the purpose, the deadline, what the findings could change, whose information may be used, and whether the work is feasible.
Discuss a community-investment question