Browse activities Resources
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"A" Frame for Advocacy This publication defines six steps to an effective public policy advocacy effort:
- Analysis,
- Strategy,
- Mobilization,
- Action,
- Evaluation, and
- Continuity.
For each step, the tool offers key questions to be considered or actions to be taken. For example, in the second step, Strategy, one of the key actions is "Establish a working group to develop a strategy and plan activities."
Author: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 1, 1999
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2008 Civic Engagement Evaluation Assessment and Recommendations for the Field 2008 was a historic year for civic participation in the United States. The Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP) brings together grantmakers committed to enhancing democratic participation in all aspects of civic life. Its nearly 80 members comprised of private, public and community foundations collectively contributed scores of millions of dollars to non-partisan civic engagement efforts of all kinds nationwide.
Author: Lacy M. Serros Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (699.52 KB) -
A Menu of Assessment Activities This brief menu of questions provides a simple, straightforward overview of evaluation activities. Author: Brett A. Magill Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Feb 24, 2010
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Advocacy & Public Policy Grantmaking: Matching Process to Purpose Building on research conducted in 2007 by Coffman and Campbell, this brief summarizes advocacy and public policy grantmaking approaches and their implications for grant portfolio composition and management, auxiliary supports and evaluation. “Advocacy and public policy grantmaking” refers to grantmaking in support of a wide range of advocacy activities that are intend to trigger, block, maintain, support and/or monitor changes in public policy at any level of government. Author: Tanya Beer, Pilar Stella Ingargiola, and Meghann Flynn Beer Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 5, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.17 MB) -
Advocacy by UK-Based Development NGOs This article from Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly provides an overview of the advocacy activities of non-governmental organizations based in the United Kingdom, with a focus on issues of legitimacy, representation, and accountability. Using material from a recently completed research project, this study examines the growing advocacy work of UK NGOs, the position advocacy holds in their work, their efforts to collaborate, their relationships with donors, and their evaluation practices. Author: Hudson, Alan Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Sep 1, 2002 Be the first to review this resource! Download (129.46 KB) -
Advocacy Impact Evaluation Reflections on a retrospective advocacy evaluation case study of a legislative campaign. The case study, based on a thorough review of the campaign’s activities, interviews with key informants, and careful analysis of the Supreme Court decision, examines a coordinated final-push campaign and its outcomes. Author: Patton, Michael Quinn Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 1, 2008 Point K Pick
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Advocacy, Poiltics & Philanthropy: A Reflection on a Decade of Immigration Reform Advocacy This Innovation Network report examines the impact and shares lessons from Atlantic’s $70.3 million
effort between 2004 and 2014 to reform the U.S. immigration system.
Among the topics covered:
Author: Innovation Network and Atlantic Philanthropies Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 1, 2016 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.98 MB) -
Advocacy, Politics & Philanthropy: A Reflection on a Decade of Immigration Reform Advocacy This Innovation Network report examines the impact and shares lessons from Atlantic’s $70.3 million effort between 2004 and 2014 to reform the U.S.Author: Johanna Morariu, Kat Athanasiades, Veena Pankaj Type: Research & Reports Date: May 1, 2015 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.98 MB) -
Basic Guide to Non-Profit Financial Management Carter McNamara's collection of information about nonprofit financial management, part of his Free Management Library. Topics include:
- Activities in the Yearly Accounting Cycle,
- Bookkeeping and Controls,
- Designing a Budget,
- Managing Cash Flow,
- Credit and Collections,
- Budget Deviation Analysis,
- Managing Program Finances, and
- Financial Statements.
Author: McNamara, Carter (ed.) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Basics of Conducting Focus Groups This is a succinct guide to running a focus group. It includes tips for preparation, developing questions, session planning, facilitation, and followup activities. Author: McNamara, Carter (ed.) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Catholic Relief Services' (CRS) Guidance for Developing Logical and Results Frameworks This document summarizes Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) guidance for developing logical and results frameworks.
• logical framework “is a systematic and visual way to present and share your understanding of the relationships among the resources you have to operate your program, the activities you plan, and the changes or results you hope to achieve.”CRS’ proframe and the U.K. Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) logframe are examples of logical frameworks.
Author: Carlisle J. Levine Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 31, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (196.44 KB) -
Collective Impact Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations.
Author: Kania J, Kramer M. - Stanford Social Innovation Review Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 1, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Creative Ways to Solicit Youth Input: A Hands-On Guide for Youth Practitioners To understand how our programs are doing, improve the quality of those programs and report to funders and other stakeholders, we collect information from a variety of sources: staff, parents, and the youth themselves. This manual provides ideas for other, creative ways to get input from youth.
Part One outlines a process you can use to plan your evaluation questions. Next, we present some key ideas to consider when implementing your evaluation, analyzing the results and reporting them.
Author: Public Profit Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: May 1, 2012
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Dabbling in the Data: A Hands-On Guide to Participatory Data Analysis Many quality improvement trainings either ignore data interpretations or offer limited guidance about how to dig into the data. This means that whoever speaks up first sets the agenda for the group—hardly a rigorous or fruitful process. Educators and children and youth professionals are increasingly interested in utilizing data to support continuous quality improvement, but few resources are available to help practitioners know what to do.Author: Public Profit Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.3 MB) -
Dynamic Dozen: Message. Tips from top presenters from the American Evaluation Association This study consisted of interviews with a dozen of the top AEA presenters to get their secrets about how to make and deliver great presentations. Their comments were grouped into three stages of presenting: message, design, and delivery. This report focuses solely on Message, that is, the mindful planning of a structured presentation. While the context for their talks spanned long and short presentations, and included different types of audiences and purposes, their insights can be used or modified by evaluators for their own presentations at the AEA annual conference and elsewhere.
Author: Anjanette Raber Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Aug 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (555.08 KB) -
Evaluating Adaptive Capacity and Skills + Resources Author: Kat Athanasiades Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 14, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Evaluating Foundation-Supported Capacity Building: Lessons Learned This study of lessons learned from evaluations of philanthropic capacitybuilding programs used a national database of 473 programs, and a survey and interviews with 87 funders (82 foundations or foundation collaboratives, and five foundation-supported intermediaries) to answer two questions:
(1) How do foundations that support nonprofit capacity building evaluate their grantmaking and direct service activities?
(2) What lessons can be learned from valuation, both to improve these programs and justify the investments made in them?
Author: Thomas E. Backer, Jane Ellen Bleeg & Kathryn Groves Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (152.27 KB) -
Evaluation Capacity Building: Examples and Lessons from the Field Innovation Network developed these three introductory evaluation documents as part of Building Nonprofit Capacity to Evaluate, Learn, and Grow Impact, a workshop we presented in partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations' Scaling What Works initiative. Author: Johanna Morariu, Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Research & Reports Date: Apr 1, 2012 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Evaluation of Nine Non-Governmental Human Rights Organisations This evaluation report examines nine organizations working in the international human rights field with support from the Dutch government. It is one sub-study of a larger evaluation of Dutch human rights policy. The sub-study used a custom evaluation framework, consisting of a general section and sections on international advocacy work, publications and information, and specific program activities. The report concludes that all nine organizations have been largely successful, but that there is still room for improvement, "especially in the field of monitoring and evaluation practice Author: Landman, Todd and Abraham, Meghna Type: Research & Reports Date: Feb 1, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Download (666.96 KB) -
Failing to learn and learning to fail (intelligently): How great organizations put failure to work to improve and innovate The paper provides insight into what makes learning from failure so difficult to put into practice. The authors address the question of why organizations fail to learn from failure. They identify pernicious barriers embedded in both technical and social systems that make collective learning processes unusual in organizations, and present recommendations for what managers can do to overcome these barriers.
Author: Mark D. Cannon and Amy C. Edmondson Type: Research & Reports Date: Feb 5, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Download (388.5 KB) -
From the War on Poverty to an Economy that Works for All This publication about the effort to reframe the "war on poverty" to "low wage work" offers an example of an advocacy campaign that monitored and evaluated its own activities. One of the lessons learned from the advocacy effort specifically is in regard to monitoring and evaluating: "Advocates and activists must be flexible and open-minded about evaluating the degree to which an approach is working or not working, if any change is to be made." Author: Shulman, Sarah Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 1, 2006 Be the first to review this resource! Download (543.15 KB) -
Guidance Note #2: Linking Monitoring and Evaluation to Impact Evaluation This is the second guidance note in a four-part series of notes related to impact evaluation developed by InterAction with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation. This second guidance note, Linking Monitoring and Evaluation to Impact Evaluation, illustrates the relationship between routine M&E and impact evaluation – in particular, how both monitoring and evaluation activities can support meaningful and valid impact evaluation.
Author: Burt Perrin Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Apr 16, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.24 MB) -
Guidance Note #4: Use of Impact Evaluation Results This is the fourth guidance note in a four-part series of notes related to impact evaluation developed by InterAction with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation.This fourth guidance note, Use of Impact Evaluation Results, highlights three themes crucial for effective utilization of evaluation results.
Author: David Bonbright Type: Research & Reports Date: Nov 7, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.84 MB) -
Guide to Monitoring and Evaluating policy influence Author: Harry Jones Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Feb 23, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (171.99 KB) -
How to Design a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for a Policy Research Project This guidance note focuses on the designing and structuring of a monitoring and evaluation framework for policy research projects and programmes.
The primiary audience for this guidance note is people designing and managing monitoring and evaluation. However, it will be a useful tool for anyone involved in monitoring and evaluation activities.
The framework presented in this guidance note is intended to be used in a flexible manner depending on the purpose and characteristics of the research project.
Author: Methods Lab Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2016 Be the first to review this resource! Download (346.06 KB)