A made-up example. The people, organisations and numbers are invented, to show what the skill produces from a 30-minute call.
Date: 2026-10-27
Participants: Dana Okafor (Programme Officer, Northbridge Foundation); Sam Patel (Founder, Lantern Literacy)
Granola note: link to the note
Summary
Dana and Sam reviewed the first year of Northbridge's grant to Lantern Literacy ahead of the renewal decision in December. The pilot results were stronger than either expected on reading scores but weaker on attendance, and most of the call went on what that means for the renewal. They agreed that Lantern will apply for the larger, two-year tier rather than a straight renewal, on the condition that the application deals head-on with attendance. Dana will share the board's criteria for the larger tier, and Sam will send a one-page results summary and the independent case study by Friday.
Part 1: How the first year went
Dana opened by saying the board "liked what they saw in the interim report" but had asked one question she wanted to put to Sam directly: whether the reading gains would hold up outside the two pilot schools.
Sam walked through the numbers. Children in the programme gained an average of 7 months of reading age over 5 months, against 4 months in the comparison classes. Sam was careful about how far that goes:
"I'm fairly confident it's real, maybe 80%, but it's two schools and one year. I wouldn't put it in a headline yet."
The weaker number was attendance: only 62% of enrolled children came to at least three-quarters of sessions, against a target of 75%. Sam put most of that down to the after-school slot clashing with sibling pick-ups, which one school fixed in spring by moving sessions to lunchtime.
Dana's reaction: the attendance gap mattered less to her than whether Lantern understood it. "If you can show me you know why it happened, that's a better story than hitting the target by luck."
Part 2: Renewal or the larger tier?
Dana raised the option Sam hadn't expected: Northbridge's larger, two-year tier (up to £180,000), which the board has opened to "grantees with early evidence".
Sam's first instinct was caution: "I don't want to over-reach and lose the renewal." Dana said the two weren't in competition. A strong application for the larger tier could still be funded at renewal level if the board wasn't convinced.
The conversation turned on what the larger tier would actually pay for. Sam listed three options:
- Expanding to four more schools in the same area.
- A proper attendance experiment: lunchtime against after-school sessions, across all six schools.
- A part-time evaluation lead, so the next round of results is independent.
Dana pushed back on option 1 on its own: "Expansion without the attendance fix is just more of the same problem." Sam agreed, and by the end of this part they'd settled on options 2 and 3 as the core of the application, with expansion as "a stretch, if the numbers allow".
Part 3: Next steps
Decisions
- Lantern will apply for the larger two-year tier, built around the attendance experiment and an evaluation lead.
- The application leads with attendance, not the reading scores.
Actions agreed
- Sam: send Dana a one-page summary of the year's results by Friday.
- Sam: send the independent case study Dana asked about.
- Dana: share the board's criteria for the larger tier this week.
- Sam and Dana: a 20-minute call in mid-November to look at a draft, "if it'd help" (Dana's words: it wasn't firmly booked).
Appendix 1: Open questions
- Will the two remaining schools agree to lunchtime sessions? Sam hasn't asked them yet.
- Does the board want the evaluation lead to be independent of Lantern, or just separately funded? Dana wasn't sure.
- How big would an attendance experiment need to be to say anything? Neither had a number.
Appendix 2: Key quotes
| Speaker | Quote | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Sam | "I'm fairly confident it's real, maybe 80%, but it's two schools and one year." | On the reading gains |
| Dana | "If you can show me you know why it happened, that's a better story than hitting the target by luck." | On the attendance gap |
| Dana | "Expansion without the attendance fix is just more of the same problem." | Pushing back on expanding first |
Appendix 3: Underlying dynamics
Dana is on Lantern's side, within limits. She volunteered the larger tier and coached Sam on how to frame it, but was clear she can't guarantee the board. The application has to stand up on its own.
Sam's caution is a strength here. Sam's hedging on the results went down well. Dana seemed to read it as credibility, which suggests the application should keep that tone rather than oversell.