Search Results

publication Sep 2011

Advocacy Evaluation Case Study: The Chalkboard Project

An evaluation of a civic engagement and advocacy effort in Oregon offered an opportunity to incorporate both retrospective and prospective approaches and new advocacy evaluation tools. It is a case example of how evaluation can support strategic learning among advocates.

publication Jul 2011

Looking Through the Right End of the Telescope

Questions about whether it is possible to evaluate advocacy have led to a proliferation of new tools aimed at responding to the real and perceived unique challenges to evaluating advocacy. This brief questions whether the advocacy evaluation field's emphasis on the development of tools is best serving advocates.

publication Nov 2010

Social Movements and Philanthropy: How Foundations Can Support Movement Building

Movement building presents unique challenges for foundations. Because movements, by definition, must be driven by the people who are most affected, foundations cannot pre-determine their goals and timetables. This Foundation Review article describes how to support and evaluate social movements, including outlining core elements to movement building and proposing an evaluative framework. 

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.

publication Aug 2010

Champions and “Champion-ness”: Measuring Efforts to Create Champions for Policy Change

Creating “policy champions” who shepherd policy change is central to many advocacy efforts. But what exactly is a champion for policy change? How can we assess progress in identifying, informing, or activating them? This brief offers a tool for defining and tracking the activity of champions for policy change, along with the challenges involved in using it.

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.

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. 

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.

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.