Performance Scorecard

We exist to do the most possible good with the resources given to the community by Archie Bush, and our performance scorecard is a look into how we’re doing. With the scorecard, we want to both demystify our work and show some of the ways we are trying to do more good every year. We also hope that by sharing this information we can grow public understanding and trust in our work and live our operating values more fully.

To develop the scorecard, we did a lot of community outreach to understand what people wanted to know about us. That outreach also informed our community questions, which serve as a companion piece to the scorecard. It’s more than just a typical Q&A. It’s another way in which we strive to be radically open. 

Curious about what it took to develop the scorecard? We’ve got a learning paper for that! Read Radically Open: Performance Scorecard.

Send us your feedback or questions any time at staff@bushfoundation.org.

What We Fund

We are, at our core, a grantmaking institution. Our grantmaking includes grants, fellowships and program related investments. This section highlights indicators related to where our grantmaking dollars are going.

Make the region better for everyone

Why it’s important to us

In everything we do, we’re working to make the region better for everyone. We continuously try to understand who is not doing well and focus our resources there.

One way we track how we are doing is understanding how much of our funding is advancing racial and economic equity.

How we are doing

We’ve had a stated goal since 2012 for at least 50% of all our funding to advance racial and/or economic equity in the region. Back then we were at 18%. Today we are exceeding that mark by quite a bit, with over 90% of our funding advancing racial and/or economic equity in each of the last three years.

What’s next

Top of mind for us is our commitment to place, particularly the challenges and opportunities unique to rural areas within our region. We are actively learning more about the overlaps of race, class and place — and considering how our funding commitments can have the most impact.

Percent of 2024 grantmaking to advance racial &/or economic equity

  • Racial and economic equity
    47%
  • Racial equity only
    33%
  • Economic equity only
    9%
  • Neither
    9%

Support community-driven change

Why it’s important to us

Change efforts are far more likely to succeed and be sustained when they are owned and shaped by the people most impacted by the change.

We work across three states and 23 Native nations, so we are not truly of any one community. To do our work well, we seek to work in close consultation with organizations that are better positioned to make decisions related to communities.

How we are doing

In 2024, 15% of our grants and program-related investments (PRIs) were made through community grant partners and 43% supported community-led efforts. In the past few years, we have upped our commitment to working with partners to share more power in our grantmaking and work in deeper partnership with communities. We do this in two ways: by supporting work through our regular grantmaking that is shaped and driven by people from the communities affected by those efforts; and through grantmaking partnerships in which other organizations regrant Bush funding.

What’s next

This measure is a tricky one, and we are working to get better on how we define and track this.

Percent of 2024 grants & PRIs made through community grant partners & to community-led efforts *

  • Through community grant partners
    15%
  • To community-led efforts
    43%
  • Not community grant partner or community led
    42%

Support Native people and Native nations

Why it’s important to us

We believe that investing in Native people and Native nations is one of the highest impact things we can do. The challenges facing Native communities are profound, and we see extraordinary people and institutions with big ideas throughout Native nations and Native communities in our region.

How we’re doing

Across all our grantmaking, 41% went to support Native people and Native nations in 2024. This was relatively consistent with our funding of Native communities in the past few years. We’ve also started looking at some additional aspects of our Native-focused funding to get a better understanding of the kind of investments we’re making. In 2024, 23% of our Native-focused funding supported tribal governments, 59% supported Native-led nonprofits and 73% supported issues related to the self determination of Native people such as language reclamation, land stewardship and energy production.

What’s next

We are committed to influencing the field of philanthropy to invest more to benefit Native people.

41%

PERCENT OF 2024 GRANTMAKING TO SUPPORT NATIVE PEOPLE AND NATIVE NATIONS

Reduce racial wealth gaps

Why it’s important to us

Wealth matters a lot. Wealth makes a huge difference in a person’s ability to weather challenges and take advantage of opportunities. That’s why wealth is such a big factor in predicting a child’s life outcomes.

How we are doing

In 2020, we raised $100 million through social impact bonds to create two community trust funds ($50 million each), designed and operated by two steward organizations—Nexus Community Partners and NDN Collective. We announced in 2021 that we would commit another $50 million through our regular grantmaking programs to help reduce racial wealth gaps. That commitment originally was planned to be a five-year goal (by 2025)—and we achieved it in two. We are currently at $102 million.

$102M

Progress toward our goal of $50M to address racial wealth gaps by 2025

What’s next

We reached our milestone but are still looking for opportunities for Black, Indigenous and people of color in the region thrive in our economy and build wealth for themselves and those to follow.

How we fund

We believe that how we do our grantmaking matters as much as what we fund. This section highlights aspects of our grantmaking approach and why we believe it matters.

Make it easy to work with us

Why it’s important to us

We want people who apply for a grant with us to have a great experience—one that’s simple and helps advance their vision of what’s possible. That includes not making people guess at what our intent is or what makes for a strong proposal, so we try to provide lots of help and guidance along the way.

How we are doing

We survey applicants and grantees and use that feedback to continuously improve the applicant experience so we can do more of what’s working well and stop doing what’s not. For this indicator, we looked across the two main programs we operated in 2024: Bush Fellowship and Community Innovation. Our most recent applicant survey data shows 59% of survey respondents said our processes are better than other foundations.

What’s next

We will continue to reflect on feedback and work to improve and adapt the application experience.

How 2024 applicants rated our process versus others *

  • better
    59%
  • about the same
    16%
  • worse
    4%
  • did not apply to other funders
    20%

Respond to applicants quickly

Why it’s important to us

We know that the time between submitting an application and getting an answer from us is stressful for applicants, and it puts them in an unproductive holding pattern as they wait. We also balance that desire for responsiveness with the need to give thoughtful consideration to each application.

How we are doing

While this is important across all our programs, we are using an indicator for Community Innovation grants because it is a rolling program and so each applicant is on a unique-to-them review timeline. For these applicants, 69% receive initial responses from us within 6 weeks.

Initial application response time for 2024 Community Innovation grant applicants

  • 1-2 weeks
    11%
  • 3-4 weeks
    25%
  • 5-6 weeks
    32%
  • more than 6 weeks
    31%

What’s next

We are continuing to improve how we make processes more transparent and how we stay in touch with applicants throughout them.

Support people to think bigger and differently

Why it’s important to us

The future of communities in our region will be defined by what the people in them believe they can be. That’s why we want to take every opportunity to encourage people to think bigger and think differently about what is possible. We also know that applicants spend a lot of time and energy to submit their proposal to us. That is particularly true for the Bush Fellowship program, which is why we are focusing on that program as our indicator here.

How we are doing

It’s great that 93% of Bush Fellowship applicants say the application process helped them to think bigger and think differently. However, this percentage is down a little from previous years, so we want to learn more about why that changed.

2024 Bush Fellowship applicant rating of how helpful the application process was in thinking bigger & differently *

  • extremely helpful
    54%
  • at least somewhat helpful
    38%
  • not helpful
    7%

What’s next

We will continue tracking our applicant data and other information to make sure we’re doing all we can to add value to our processes across programs.

Bring as many perspectives as possible into decision making

Why it’s important to us

We’re making decisions that affect lots of people across our region. We believe that having a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds at the table makes for better decisions.

How we are doing

We are intentional about considering the skills, experiences and perspectives of the people who work at Bush or participate in decision-making so that we can understand how we are doing at outreach and recruitment.

What’s next

We continually work to build the skills of curiosity and awareness through individual learning and development—at both the staff and board level—as well as organization-wide training and support.

Be as open and accessible as possible

Why it’s important to us

All of our main funding opportunities are done through open application processes. This is part of our commitment to equity and making sure everyone in the region has the opportunity to (1) know about any funding opportunities we offer and (2) apply if they believe they have the skills and experience we are looking for.

How we are doing

In 2019, we set a goal of having 100% of our funding go out through open process. While we met this goal for all new grants we made in 2024, we are technically still at 99% in terms of the payments we made last year due to a few remaining legacy investments.

Percent of 2024 grantmaking through open processes

  • Granted through Bush Foundation open process
    84%
  • To be granted through partner open process
    14%
  • Not open process
    1%

What’s next

We know relationships with a broad range of community members and organizations are necessary to make open process grantmaking work and continue to build up our engagement efforts across the region.

How we operate

We want to do good in everything we do—as a grantmaker, an employer, an investor, a consumer, etc. This section highlights some of the ways this shows up in our operating practices.

Use our spending for good

Why it’s important to us

Our commitment to do the most possible good with the resources left by Archie Bush goes beyond our grantmaking. We regularly rely on the services of a variety of businesses, from independent contractors to larger companies, to help us get things done. We believe all the money we spend should benefit the region as much as possible.

73%

Percent of non-grant payout to businesses in our region

How we are doing

In 2024, at least 68% of our non-grant payout went to businesses owned by people who self-identify as Black, Indigenous or people of color; women; LGBTQ+, refugees and immigrants; people with disabilities and veterans. These groups make up more than half of the people in our region. In addition, 73% of our spending stays in the region. We do not have quotas or targets for any of our spending and our top priority is to partner with businesses that are qualified, good to work with and cost-effective.

What’s next

In 2024, 10 of the 62 businesses we worked with did not or declined to respond to our vendor form. We want to be more intentional about requesting this information from every business with the goal of reaching a 100% response rate.

Grow our capacity to do more good

Why it’s important to us

Our only source of revenue is the investment earnings from our endowment—the funds left to us by Archie Bush. We don’t fundraise and we don’t sell things. Our ability to make grants is wholly dependent on our investment returns, so it’s imperative that we manage those investments well.

7.5%

Percent change in total assets between 12/31/2023 and 12/31/2024

How we’re doing

Our endowment was up 7.5% and valued at $1.4 billion at the end of 2024. Because financial markets can be volatile resulting in positive or negative returns in any given year and because we are a long-term investor, we use the average of our total assets over the last three years to determine the annual dollar amount for our grantmaking.

What’s next

We will continue to invest our assets to allow us to do the most good for the communities we serve.

Put more of our assets to work for good

Why it’s important to us

As a foundation, our grantmaking is the most obvious way we use our assets for good. Less visible, but equally important, is how we use other kinds of investments to advance our purpose. This area of our work is guided by our impact investing approach.

How we’re doing

Last year we surpassed our 3-year, $100 million impact investing goal set in 2021. As of May 2025, we had made $158M in impact investments ($117M in endowment investments and $41M in PRIs).

158%

Progress toward original goal of $100M in active impact investments

What’s next

We have multiple new goals for our impact investments and aligned investments.

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