Browse lessons learned Resources
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"Real-life Lessons Learned and Resources in Building Capacity for Advocacy and Policy Evaluation among KIDS COUNT Grantees" The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Organizational Research Services, Inc. recount ten lessons learned from an evaluation of five KIDS COUNT grantees that began in 2007. The evaluation was designed to test some of the ideas presented in "A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy", a report produced by AECF and ORS in 2006. This handout, distributed at the American Evaluation Association 2008 conference, also contains a list of advocacy evaluation resources available on ORS's website. Author: Annie E. Casey Foundation; Organizational Research Services Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Nov 6, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (261.49 KB) -
5 Evaluation Lessons from a Recovering Program Officer (recording) As a profession, evaluators must constantly demonstrate the value of their work to remain relevant. Each evaluation represents a significant investment in resources that many argue could be used to provide more programming. A primary concern of maintaining the value proposition of the evaluation field is ensuring that evaluations remain manageable and useful to all participants. The Ignite session offered five succinct lessons from a former foundation Program Officer that can be applied across program types to help nonprofits and foundations improve evaluation coordination and use. Author: Will Fenn Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Oct 17, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Advocacy Evaluation Update (Issue #8, January 2010) In this issue:
1. Feature: Rhonda Schlangen discusses advocacy evaluation lessons learned in Nigeria and Kenya.
2. Spotlight: System Mapping in Advocacy Planning and Evaluation
3. Profile: Center for Evaluation Innovation
4. Editor's Picks: Two new resources from Cause Communications and Keystone Accountability.
This issue was produced with support from The California Endowment and The Atlantic Philanthropies.Author: The Center for Evaluation Innovation; Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Jan 14, 2010 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (266.75 KB) -
Advocacy Toolkit: Creating Campaigns that Change the World This toolkit was designed as a reference guide for staff of relief and development organizations who are seeking domestic (U.S.) support for international issues. The guide grew out of the work of InterAction's Outreach and Communications Working Group, "a forum for communications, fundraising, volunteering, advocacy, and grassroots organization, where professionals come together to share experiences, lessons learned, and collaborate whenever possible."
The advocacy toolkit contains eight sections:Author: InterAction Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2006
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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) -
Approaches to Supporting Evaluation Capacity Building Myia Welsh and Johanna Morariu outline six lessons gleaned from their evaluation capacity building experiences with nonprofits, highlighting Innovation Network's white paper titled "Evaluation Capacity Building: Funder Initiatives to Strengthen Grantee Evaluation Capacity and Practice." Author: Johanna Morariu and Myia Welsh Type: Opinion (blog, editorial) Date: Aug 28, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Assessing Capacity for Community Change Efforts: Learnings From an Adaptive Initiative (Presentation slides) Should community change efforts be focused on funding coalitions or funding a flexible group of community leaders? The Kansas Health Foundation has embraced a four-pronged community change model that targets community leaders as key agents of change within each of their funded communities. Author: Kat Athanasiades, Veena Pankaj, Deanna Van Hersh Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 17, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (682.32 KB) -
Assessing Capacity for Community Change Efforts: Learnings From an Adaptive Initiative [Slides] Should community change efforts be focused on funding coalitions or funding a flexible group of community leaders? The Kansas Health Foundation has embraced a four-pronged community change model that targets community leaders as key agents of change within each of their funded communities. Innovation Network, the evaluation partner for the Kansas Health Foundation's Healthy Communities Initiative, developed and deployed an assessment tool designed to contribute to the assessment of leadership capacity in effecting community change. Author: Kat Athanasiades, Veena Pankaj, and Deanna Van Hersh Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 17, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Assessing the Capacity of Community Coalitions to Advocate for Change (Presentation Handout) Research has shown that high-capacity coalitions are more successful in effecting community change. While a number of coalition assessment tools have been developed, documentation is scarce regarding how they are implemented, how the results are used, and whether they are predictive of coalition success in collaborative community change efforts.
Author: Veena Pankaj, Kat Athanasiades, Ann Emery, Johanna Morariu Type: Presentation Slides Date: May 22, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (377.49 KB) -
Background: Building Capacity for Public Policy Iniative The National Council of Nonprofit Associations (NCNA) evaluated the Building Capacity for Public Policy (BCPP) project. The results of the evaluation are summarized in this newsletter. NCNA states that "the lessons learned are applicable to any nonprofit organization trying to focus their efforts, to evaluate their readiness to engage in or to enhance their public policy efforts." It offers eight indicators of capacity for state associations to effectively engage in public policy: Author: National Council of Nonprofit Associations Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Oct 1, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Download (549.21 KB) -
Best Practices for Advocacy The ACTION Project, a group of partners in seven countries that advocate for tuberculosis control, produced this document to highlight lessons learned from its advocacy successes. Note: This is not an evaluation focused publication, but elements of it (e.g., Chapter 2) do relate to evaluation. Author: ACTION: Advocacy to Control Tuberculosis Internationally Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Nov 1, 2007
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Coalition Assessment: Approaches for Measuring Capacity and Impact Why assess coalition capacity? How should a coalition be assessed? How can coalition assessment data be analyzed and used?
Author: Veena Pankaj, Kat Athanasiades, and Ann Emery Type: Research & Reports Date: Feb 4, 2014 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (768.05 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: Funder Initiatives to Strengthen Grantee Evaluation Capacity and Practice Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) is the process of improving an organization’s ability to use evaluation to learn from its work and improve results. Organizational learning is incredibly important. Organizations that are adept at learning from mistakes and adapting to new challenges are more likely to be successful, and in the nonprofit sector, more likely to make significant progress toward mission-related outcomes. In general, ECB can be used to:
Author: Myia Welsh and Johanna Morariu Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 15, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (248.37 KB) -
Evaluation of PEPFAR Through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States has provided an unprecedented level of health and development assistance and health diplomacy around the world.
Author: Institute of Medicine of the National Academies Type: Research & Reports Date: Feb 1, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (761.22 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) -
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) -
Lessons Community and Smaller Foundations can Learn from the Evaluation Practices of Large Foundations Ever wonder what the rest of us can learn from the evaluation approaches of large foundations? In this webinar Johanna Morariu and Ehren Reed provide an overview of The Packard Foundation’s The Standards, an example of a comprehensive strategy and evaluation handbook. The presenters also share four lessons that can be learned from the evaluation approaches of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Annie E. Author: Type: Date: Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Lessons in Evaluating Communications Campaigns: Five Case Studies This publication is the fourth report from the Communications Consortium Media Center's Media Evaluation Project. The author presents five case studies of completed campaign evaluations. The case studies represent an array of campaign types and evaluation approaches, and offer specific examples of evaluation responding to challenges. The five case studies are: S
Author: Coffman, Julia Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (212.52 KB) -
Measuring Influence: Advocacy Evaluation Challenges and Successes This resource was created as an introduction to advocacy evaluation, and its intended audience is nonprofit staff with no evaluation expertise or experience. Knowledge Manager & Webmaster Simone Parrish developed this article as a synthesis of lessons learned from Innovation Network's advocacy evaluation work from 2005 to 2008. Now a single 16-page document, the article was originally presented as a five-part, weekly series on Grantstation.com in the fall of 2008. Author: Simone Parrish Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: May 28, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.39 MB) -
My M & E (Monitoring and Evaluation) My M&E is an interactive WEB 2.0 platform to share knowledge on country-led Monitoring and Evaluation systems worldwide. In addition to being a learning resource, My M&E facilitates the strengthening of a global community, while identifying good practices and lessons learned about program monitoring and evaluation in general, and on country-led M&E systems in particular. Author: UNICEF and others Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Report: "Ten Considerations for Advocacy Evaluation Planning: Lessons Learned from KIDS COUNT Grantee Experiences" The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Organizational Research Services, Inc. detail ten lessons learned from an evaluation of five KIDS COUNT grantees that began in 2007. The evaluation was designed to test some of the ideas presented in "A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy", a report produced by AECF and ORS in 2006. Author: Organizational Research Services Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (289.93 KB) -
Seeing the Forest (Beyond the Trees): Learning Across the Experiences of Seven Advocacy Evaluators [Slides] Advocacy and policy change evaluation continues to evolve and mature--from a fledgling field a few years ago to the flourishing field of today. Evaluators are advancing as well, developing an increasingly robust collective understanding about what works for advocacy evaluation. In this session a diverse group of seven advocacy evaluators explored and synthesized observations drawn from an array of real-world experiences. Panelists spoke to targeted questions, weaving in their wealth of experience and examples. Author: Johanna Morariu, Jara Dean-Coffey, Tom Kelly, Claire Hutchings, David Devlin Foltz, Robin Kane, Jared Raynor, Anne Gienapp, Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 19, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link