Browse assessment Resources
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"Participatory Performance Story Reporting" Clear Horizon, an M&E company in Australia, describes its participatory approach, specifically as it relates to the method of performance story reporting (PPSR). The company defines performance story reports as "essentially a short report about how a program contributed to outcomes." This page on their website includes links to other pages that describe the structure, process, and limitations of this the PPSR method. Author: Clear Horizon Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Dec 31, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (161.39 KB) -
#JAGUnity2014: Innovations in Evaluating Social Movements Today, social movement organizers are grappling with big questions: What is the long-term impact we are hoping to make? How can we measure the progress we've made thus far? How can we learn from past practice? On June 7, 2014, Innovation Netowrk's William Fenn spoke on a panel with with Deepak Pateriya and Sian O'Faolain of the Center for Community Change and Hillary Klein of Make the Road New York to try and answer some of these questions. Author: Will Fenn, Deepak Pateriya, Sian O'Faolain, Hillary Klein Type: Presentation Slides Date: Jun 7, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
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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A Model for Multilevel Advocacy Evaluation Tanya Beer of The Colorado Trust and Ehren Reed of Innovation Network produced this article for The Foundation Review to describe a three-year advocacy evaluation capacity building project for nine health access advocacy organizations in Colorado. Author: Tanya Beer, The Colorado Trust; Ehren Reed, Innovation Network Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (990.44 KB) -
A Practical Guide for Engaging Stakeholders in Developing Evaluation Questions This guide describes a five-step process for engaging stakeholders in developing evaluation
questions, and includes four worksheets and a case example to further facilitate the planning
and implementation of your stakeholder engagement process.Step 1: Prepare for stakeholder engagement: This step includes collecting information about
the program or initiative being evaluated—its history, why it came into being, what it is trying
to accomplish and what success would look like.Author: Hallie Preskill and Nathalie Jones Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jun 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1001.41 KB) -
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning Julia Coffman of Harvard Family Research Project produced this free guide to advocacy evaluation planning for advocates, evaluators, and funders. The guide introduces users to the composite logic model and includes a pullout worksheet along with several lists of sample advocacy evaluation outcomes and methods. Author: Julia Coffman Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Sep 1, 2009 Point K Pick
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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 Capacity Tool The Advocacy Capacity Tool (ACT) is for organizational assessment. ACT, released in May 2012, is a self-assessment tool that allows organizations of any size and issue area to gauge their advocacy skills, knowledge and abilities.
The Tool includes four sections of assessment, and gives users an individual scoring report as well as the ability to compare results with other organizations of similar size, issue area, and location.
Author: Bolder Advocacy (an initiative of Alliance for Justice) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: May 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (719.51 KB) -
Advocacy Capacity Tool (ACT) Report: First 100 User Groups (Executive Summary) In September 2013, Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy Initiative released a report offering a glimpse into how nonprofit organizations view their capacity for public policy work. The report is based on data from the first 100 groups to complete AFJ’s online self-assessment tool, the Advocacy Capacity Tool.Author: Alliance for Justice Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (703.04 KB) -
Advocacy Evaluation Advances Framing Paper This framing paper provides the rationale, goals, and background information for the Advocacy Evaluation Advances convening held in Los Angeles on January 20-21, 2009. Produced prior to the convening, the paper offers an overview of topics to be discussed and current advocacy evaluation practice, illustrated with real-life examples drawn from the convening agenda.
Author: The California Endowment Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 20, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (314.5 KB) -
Advocacy Evaluation Update #10 In this issue:
ADVOCACY EVALUATION AND RIGOR - How to be Methodically Rigorous in the Field of Advocacy Evaluation By Lily Zandniapour and Kathy Brennan
PROFILES FROM THE FIELD - Dr. Paul Zeitz, The Global AIDS Alliance By Laura Ostenso
SPOTLIGHT A User’s Prospective on an Advocacy Evaluation Planning Tool from the Children’s Aid Society - By Moria Cappio and Melanie Reyes
EDITOR’S PICKS News, Events, and Resources
Author: Julia Coffman (ed.) Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Oct 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (425.54 KB) -
Advocacy Evaluation Update #9 In This Issue:
1. Feature: Framework of Factors that Affect Political Support
Why do some issues receive priority attention from political leaders while others receive very little? Political scientist Jeremy Shiffman has developed a framework that offers a response to this question.
2. Spotlight: Evaluating Community Organizing
Catherine Crystal Foster and Justin Louie identify what to consider when evaluating community organizing efforts. They also offer example benchmarks and methods for capturing organizing outcomes.
Author: Julia Coffman (ed.) Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: May 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (329.6 KB) -
Advocacy For Poverty Eradication And Empowerment: Ways Forward For Advocacy Impact Assessment In this paper, Linda Mayoux examines and builds on advocacy evaluation frameworks such as those used by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the U.K. Department for International Development, and international NGOs.
The paper:Author: Mayoux, Linda Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (550.73 KB) -
Advocacy Impact Assessment Guidelines This publication reviews what advocacy is, how NGOs can use it, and considerations for evaluating it. The publication outlines five "dimensions of change":
Author: Lloyd-Laney, Megan Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Mar 24, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (208.15 KB) -
AEA Paper: "Accountability and the No Child Left Behind Act: Implications for Public Policy" Cindy Roper of Clemson University delivered this paper (and a presentation of the same title) at the 2008 American Evaluation Association conference. Roper examined accountability measures for a policy initiative (in this case, the No Child Left Behind act) through the lens of organizational theory. Author: Roper, Cindy Type: Research & Reports Date: Nov 8, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (54.08 KB) -
AEA Presentation: "Accountability and the No Child Left Behind Act: Implications for Public Policy" Cindy Roper of Clemson University delivered the following slides (and a paper of the same title) at the 2008 American Evaluation Association conference. Roper examined accountability measures for a policy initiative (in this case, the No Child Left Behind act) through the lens of organizational theory. Author: Roper, Cindy Type: Presentation Slides Date: Nov 8, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (44.7 KB) -
Agency Experiences with Outcome Measurement: Survey Findings As of January 2000, 400 United Ways across the country were asking programs they fund
to identify and measure their outcomes—the benefits or changes the programs want
participants to experience as a result of their services. United Ways are not alone. Many
state and local government agencies, foundations, managed care systems, and accrediting bodies
have added outcome measurement to the list of performance and accountability measures
they require of nonprofit organizations within their sphere.Author: United Way of America Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (209.74 KB) -
Alliance for Justice Advocacy Capacity Tool 2013: Public Aggregate Report In September 2013, Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy Initiative released a report offering a glimpse into how nonprofit organizations view their capacity for public policy work. The report is based on data from the first 100 groups to complete AFJ’s online self-assessment tool, the Advocacy Capacity Tool.Author: UW-Stout Applied Research Center Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.76 MB) -
An Advocate’s Perspective: Ten Considerations for Effective Advocacy Evaluation Ted Lempert, president of the Oakland, California-based advocacy and research organization Children Now, provides his ten considerations for effective advocacy evaluation. Lempert presented this document at the Advocacy Evaluation Advances convening in Los Angeles in January, 2009.
Do you agree with these ten considerations? Should something be added to this list? Please use the comment section below to contribute to the discussion.
Author: Lempert, Ted Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Jan 20, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (66.81 KB) -
An Evaluation Approach for an Environmental Think Tank and Advocacy Organization Johanna Morariu described how Innovation Network worked with the Post Carbon Institute to develop an organizational evaluation framework. We developed and fine tuned several assessment areas for think tank evaluation and advocacy evaluation with interview data collected from key informants. Then, in consultation with key staff from the Post Carbon Institute, we created an organizational theory of change. The theory contains information about the organization’s mission; audiences; strategies; focusing events, crises, and windows of opportunity; desired shifts, and impact. Author: Johanna Morariu Type: Opinion (blog, editorial) Date: Apr 19, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Ask the expert: What is strategic learning and how do you develop an organizational culture that encourages it? In article from The Evaluation Exchange, John A. Healy, Director of Strategic Learning and Evaluation at The Atlantic Philanthropies, shares ways to position learning as an organizational priority. Author: Julia Coffman, HFRP; Erin Harris, HFRP Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Jun 1, 2005 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Assessing and Evaluating Change in Advocacy Fields This white paper aims to bring together emerging ideas about how to assess advocacy fields and evaluate advocacy field building initiatives. Dr. Lynn and other evaluators have developed a core set of dimensions to help organize thinking about these complex advocacy fields, and have begun experimenting with indicators of a strong field, tools for assessing the baseline of a field, and strategies for measuring change in fields. This paper seeks to test and refine some of these ideas.Author: Dr. Jewlya Lynn Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Download (790.23 KB) -
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