publication Aug 2010

Measuring Impact in Practice: A Case Study of The Humane Society of the United States

Just like all nonprofits, the Humane Society of the United States is accountable—to the animals it protects and to its donors. This brief describes how the nation’s largest animal protection organization developed an impact framework to capture its advocacy and direct service outcomes.

By Beth Rosen Cohen

publication Aug 2010

Using a Social Justice Lens in Advocacy Evaluation

Social justice advocacy works for enduring changes that increase the power of those who are most disadvantaged politically, economically, and socially. This brief discusses how to incorporate the concept of social justice and its underlying values into advocacy evaluation.

presentation Jun 2010

Use of Evaluative Information in Foundations: 2009 Benchmarking Data

This presentation, developed for the Evaluation Roundtable, offers† benchmarking data on foundation practices regarding evaluation and learning and how evaluation resources are deployed. In the shift toward strategic philanthropy, at the time, foundations were challenged to re-frame evaluation from an older model of “post hoc” assessment to one that examined their own work from start to finish.

By Patricia Patrizi, Elizabeth Heid Thompson

publication Mar 2010

Evaluating Community Organizing

Community organizing has gained visibility as a vibrant and potent force for social change. While it shares many characteristics with policy advocacy, it differs in significant ways and the approaches to evaluating the two also differ. This brief offers a vision for community organizing evaluation that is grounded in a set of principles based on direct experience with organizers. 

By Catherine Crystal Foster, Justin Louie

publication Oct 2009

Tools to Support Public Policy Grantmaking

This Foundation Review article offers guidance on how foundations can frame, focus, and advance efforts to achieve public policy reforms, outlines five essential steps for developing public policy strategy, and provides two tools to support foundations during the strategy development process.

By Julia Coffman

publication Oct 2009

Evaluating Advocacy and Policy Change: The Funder’s Perspective

Funders with experience in advocacy evaluation have found that getting buy-in from grantees and other funder staff can be challenging. This brief offers responses.

By Barbara Masters

publication Jun 2009

Necessary And Not Sufficient: The State of Evaluation Use in Foundations

Based on a 2009 survey of evaluation leaders from foundations known for their commitment to evaluation, this study looked at whether foundations “walk the talk” by tracking the results of their work. It examined the practices related to use of evaluative information in 31 foundations.

By Elizabeth Heid Thompson, Patricia Patrizi

publication May 2008

Death Is Certain. Strategy Isn’t.

For many in philanthropy, the word “strategy” has come to imply a de rigueur set of formal and sequential steps: research, analysis and development of a theory of change, and identification and tracking of outputs and outcomes. This teaching case about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s work to improve end‐of‐life care in America is about an alternative approach to linear conceptions of strategy.

By Patricia Patrizi, Elizabeth Heid Thompson, Abby Spector 

publication Oct 2006

Making Evaluation Matter

Does evaluation add value to philanthropy? This report offers insights from a 2006 Evaluation Roundtable convening. It looks at where evaluation was falling short in its role and an action agenda for how it can better help to improve foundation effectiveness. 

By Patricia Patrizi, Mark Sedway

publication Jul 2006

Looking for Shadows: Evaluating Community Change in the Plain Talk Initiative

The 1990s marked the beginning of a shift by large national foundations from mainly programmatic investments to a deeper engagement in long-term, complex community change. This teaching case explores the evaluation of a large multi-city comprehensive community initiative, funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, that sought to make contraceptives available to sexually active youth to reduce pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. 

By Leila Fiester

publication Apr 2005

Evaluation of the Fighting Back Initiative

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation developed a multi-site initiative that used community-generated strategies to reduce the use and abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs. The Fighting Back initiative was in place for 12 years, with a total investment of $88 million. At the end, evaluators concluded that across the Fighting Back sites, the initiative did not produce significant reductions in use. This teaching case offers a complicated story about the many issues foundations face in evaluating their investments.

By Kay Sherwood

publication Jul 2004

The Devolution Initiative Evaluation: Innovation and Learning at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Federal welfare and health care reforms in the mid-1990s resulted in the “devolution” of powers, responsibilities, and funding from the federal to state and local levels of government. This teaching case focuses on the evaluation of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Devolution Initiative, a seven-year, $56 million project with 31 grantees and a $3.6 million external evaluation conducted by the Harvard Family Research Project.

By Kay Sherwood