Search Results

publication Jun 2019

When the Best Offense is a Good Defense: Understanding and Measuring Advocacy on the Defense

With advocacy, a “win” can mean avoiding a disadvantageous policy or holding the line on past wins. This brief covers how advocates conceptualize five different types of defense, and how to think about defense-specific outcomes, impact, and evaluation.

insight Jun 2019

It’s Time to Evaluate 501(c)(4) Activities

Advocacy evaluators need to reckon with evaluating 501(c)(4) tactics, otherwise we will find ourselves unable to speak meaningfully to the progress and setbacks our clients experience.

By Kat Athanasiades

publication Dec 2017

Evaluating Coalitions and Networks: Frameworks, Needs, and Opportunities

An impressive array of approaches, frameworks, and tools have been developed to evaluate coalitions and networks. This brief critically examines these resources, and points to challenges and opportunities that remain in efforts to assess their effectiveness and impact.

publication Nov 2017

Contribution Analysis in Policy Work: Assessing Advocacy’s Influence

How do we know what difference advocacy really makes? This brief explores the methodological application of contribution analysis, a non-experimental impact evaluation method, to advocacy and offers guidance for evaluators considering this approach.

publication May 2017

Strategy Behind the Design of Advocacy Communications Support

Foundations that fund advocacy understand the critical role communications play in policy change efforts. How can foundations best support grantees’ advocacy communications? This brief offers lessons based on the experiences of advocacy grantmaking initiatives.

publication Oct 2016

No More Half Measures

Funders can get better at designing grantmaking strategies that meet the dual demands of advocacy capacity needs and the realities of the policy and political landscape. This brief explores how funders can support policy campaigns while also building advocacy capacity, instead of just picking one approach or the other.

publication Apr 2016

Measuring Political Will: Lessons from Modifying the Policymaker Ratings Method

Advocates often seek to move political will as a way to build champions who will drive their issue through the policy process. This brief shares three scenarios where a method for measuring political will was modified. It offers lessons about the tool, the process, and the kinds of products that can be created.

publication Jan 2016

Beyond The Win: Pathways for Policy Implementation

When a policy moves from “the win” to implementation, the opportunity is ripe to inform and impact the policy outcomes. This brief provides strategies and tactics for advocates, funders, and evaluators to achieve and measure desired policy outcomes during the implementation phase.

By Sarah Stachowiak, Melanie Maltry, Leonor Robles, Eritrea Habtemariam

publication Jul 2015

Network Evaluation in Practice: Approaches and Applications

What are success factors in building a network? What should funders support when they design network grants? How can network builders and funders tell how well a network is doing? This Foundation Review article offers a three-pillar framework for evaluating networks focused on network connectivity, health, and results. 

By Julia Coffman

publication Mar 2015

The Advocacy Strategy Framework

Our most downloaded resource, this brief offers a simple one-page tool for thinking about the theories of change that underlie public policy advocacy strategies. It also offers six questions that advocates, and funders working with advocates, can work through to better articulate their theories of change.

By Tanya Beer, Julia Coffman

publication Mar 2015

Four Tools for Assessing Grantee Contribution to Advocacy Efforts

Advocacy takes place in a complex and crowded political environment with many organizations trying to move policy on the same issue at the same time. This brief offers four tools that funders can use to get a better handle on a grantee’s contribution to an advocacy effort. 

By Tanya Beer, Julia Coffman

publication Jan 2015

Field of Themes: Five Early Lessons from an Innovative Advocacy Approach

Many public policy issues are so expansive and complex that they cannot be boiled down to a specific targeted strategy and require a different approach--field building. This article offers lessons about developing and deploying an advocacy field building initiative from a program officer’s perspective.