Chapter 4 of 17 · Define and collect evidence
How to Build a Funder Context Profile: Research to Reporting
Build a funder context profile by keeping the current reporting requirements beside their sources, dates and unresolved questions. Separate a confirmed requirement from a preference or your own interpretation. Use the profile to clarify the report before collecting extra data.
This is useful when different agreements or conversations give your team competing instructions. For an internal report, the same distinction helps with a board or operational reader, but you do not need a funding profile to complete the course.
Start with the current request.
Use the relevant agreement, amendment or authorized reporting instruction. Preserve the exact wording and its location. Past reports and public priorities can suggest questions; they do not automatically define this report’s obligations.
Required: explicitly requested by an authoritative source.
Preferred: a supported preference, not a binding rule.
Inferred: your interpretation, awaiting confirmation.
Unresolved: missing information or conflicting instructions.
Clarify the phrase that could change the result.
In a fictional request, a funder asks the training team for “successful participants.” Staff assume this means people using the skill after 30 days. The form does not say that. It could mean completion, assessed competence or something else.
Record the wording as confirmed and the staff interpretation as an inference. Ask which outcome, population and period apply. Do not choose whichever interpretation yields the highest percentage.
- Record the current request and source.
- Identify the decision it will inform.
- Separate requirements from preferences and guesses.
- Assign an owner to clarify conflicting or incomplete instructions.
- Keep the dated response with the report it applies to.
Personalize the report without changing the evidence.
A reader may prefer a short summary, a local example or a particular breakdown. That can change presentation. It should not silently change the underlying definition. If an additional view is justified and the records support it, keep it clearly labelled.
Capture relevant, authorized context rather than importing every email or meeting. Private correspondence and participant records need appropriate access. AI can extract candidate requirements with citations, but the relationship owner checks whether the source is current and authoritative.
Before you collect anything new
Choose one ambiguous request. Write the exact question you need answered, its source and who will clarify it. Then compare the answer with the measure your team already uses.
Continue to reconcile the requested measure with your own. Keep the clarification in the same evidence plan so it survives a staff handover.
What source information must sit underneath the profile?
Every conclusion must be traceable to the communication, document, dataset, interview, or meeting record that supports it.
Record source ID and type, original date and timestamp, lifecycle stage, related funder/opportunity/award/program/place records, source owner, access and retention rules, exact evidence or location, derived observation, evidence status and confidence, and last verification date.
Centralization does not mean copying every private communication into one unrestricted store. Capture only relevant, authorized evidence; apply role-based access and retention; and separate participant information from relationship analysis unless its use is necessary, consented, and governed.
Keep a decision log when the context changes
Save the previous profile, the new source and the decision it changes. Record the owner, effective date and affected report. If a program officer changes roles or an award is renewed, verify which instructions still apply. Preserve old context so the team can explain why an earlier report used a different rule.
Before handing the profile to another team member, test whether they can locate the current requirements, identify the next deadline and find every unresolved question. If they must ask the departing staff member to interpret it, improve the record before calling the handoff complete.
Add this to your plan
Record what you decided in this chapter in the same working evidence plan you started in Foundations, so definitions, sources and checks stay in one place.