Advocacy Evaluation Project Update

by Lily Zandniapour and Johanna Gladfelter

In the July edition of Transforming Evaluation, there was an update on the Advocacy Evaluation Project, announcing that our online clearinghouse had gone live with more than 40 articles and resources available.  We are happy to report that we have continued to expand, and that there are now 70 resources on the site (www.innonet.org/advocacy).  We will continue to add more items to the list, and invite you to help us by letting us know if you think there is something we should add.

As our work continues to encourage movement within the field of advocacy evaluation beyond assessing policy change into one that considers the fundamental components of advocacy efforts (capacity building, network formation, relationship building, communication, issue framing, leadership development, etc.), we have assembled an Advocacy Evaluation Project Advisory Board.

The purpose of the Advisory Board is to guide and inform our work, by drawing on the in-depth knowledge and wealth of experiences of Board Members.  Our Advisory Board Members are a diverse group of professionals who represent views from three different stakeholder communities:

• Advocates or practitioners who work in this field and are, therefore, grounded in the realities of advocacy work:
  • Gary D. Bass, Founder and Executive Director of OMB Watch
  • Kate Gordon, Campaigns and Grassroots Advocacy Specialist, Alzheimer’s Association
  • Gita Gulati-Partee, Founder of OpenSource Leadership Straetgies, Inc., and Senior Consultant of the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest (CLPI)
  • Kay Monaco, Executive Director of New Mexico Voices for Children

• Funders who support advocacy efforts and believe in the ability of nonprofit organizations to affect social change:
  • Lina Paredes, Director of Programs, Liberty Hill Foundation
  • Nisha Patel, Program Officer, Washington Area Women’s Foundation
  • Huilan Yang, Evaluation Manager, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

• Evaluators who understand the challenges involved in measuring the results of advocacy work and have been involved in evaluation projects focused on advocacy initiatives:
  • Annette Gardner, Project Director, Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco
  • Patricia Patrizi, Principal, Patrizi Associates and Senior Fellow at the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning
  • Kay Sherwood, Independent Consultant
  • Rhonda Schlangen, Senior Research and Evaluation Manager, Planned Parenthood Global Partners Planned Parenthood Federation of America
  • Jennifer Prather, Evaluation and Program Manager at the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest (CLPI)
    

Advisory Board members have graciously agreed to provide feedback on the work and products of the Advocacy Evaluation Initiative during Phase I of its work.  We are grateful for their willingness to participate and look forward to the added value they will bring to our work.

In addition to assembling the Advisory Board, the Advocacy Evaluation Project team has also launched a data collection effort in collaboration with select grantees of The Atlantic Philanthropies and JEHT Foundation. The purpose of this data collection effort is to learn about the current practices and needs of advocacy organizations (in this case organizations that focus on human rights and social justice issues) as they relate to evaluation and documentation of their work and progress. Innovation Network relies on personal interviews with key staff of grantee organizations in conducting this inquiry. Findings from this effort will inform the development of practical and relevant tools that can be used by advocacy organizations to track their outcomes over time.
 
To learn more about the Advocacy Evaluation Project or the Advisory Board, review posted materials, or to suggest additional resources, visit the Project’s website at www.innonet.org/advocacy.