Research

We develop and commission original research on emerging evaluation questions and challenges. We also ask people doing cutting-edge work to write about their experiences and findings. We publish this work as online and printed briefs, papers, and articles.

Strategic Learning Project
In partnership with Innovation Network, and with support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, we are researching strategic learning approaches to evaluation. Strategic learning means using evaluation to help organizations and groups to learn quickly from their work so they can adapt their strategies to the changing circumstances around them. It means making evaluation a part of the intervention—embedding it so that it influences the process.

We are developing a suite of materials on this topic, including:

•  An introduction to the concept and how it is different from other types of evaluation
• Case studies of strategic learning in practice
• A compendium of strategic learning tools and methods
• A framework of the knowledge and skills evaluators need in order to use a strategic learning approach.

Evaluating Advocacy and Communications Capacity Building
We are working with Cause Communications on a project funded by The California Endowment to identify useful evaluation approaches for evaluating efforts that build nonprofits’ advocacy and communications capacity. We are examining the types of capacity building strategies that foundations and nonprofits use, and their pros and cons. We are taking a hard look at these strategies, assessing when and why they are used, what is expected of them, and how well those expectations match up with reality. We are also determining how to evaluate communications capacity building strategies, identifying realistic outcomes and how to capture them in a way that is useful and not burdensome.