Our 2010 Annual Performance Report represents a new approach to our reporting on the work of the Irvine Foundation. While it provides many of the features of our traditional annual report, such as a complete listing of 2010 grants, it aims to improve on that approach by providing more detail and analysis about the Foundation's progress across various dimensions of our work.

This publication is based on a report that we make each year to Irvine's Board of Directors as a way to measure our progress and hold ourselves accountable to our long-term goals. Although we have made that report publicly available in the past, this year we have combined it with our traditional annual report into a single online publication targeted at a broader audience of the Foundation's stakeholders. It includes an introductory video by our President and CEO, Jim Canales.

Our report looks at Irvine's performance in two broad areas that we believe are important to understanding our impact:

• Program Impact - In this section, we address questions related to the effectiveness of our programs: Are we achieving what we set out to achieve? What are we learning and how are we using that knowledge to improve our work? What do we know about our program fields and how does it shape our approach?

• Institutional Effectiveness -We also look at areas beyond our programs that are related to our effectiveness as an institution: How is Irvine exercising leadership in the field of philanthropy and in our program fields? How are we perceived by our stakeholders and how does that inform our work? How are we performing along measures of financial health and organizational effectiveness?

This publication represents the latest evolution in our approach to measuring our performance and reporting on the results. In that sense, it is a work in progress, and we appreciate your thoughts and ideas about how to do it better. Please give us your feedback in the comments section below, and thank you for your interest in the James Irvine Foundation.