Browse Research & Reports Resources

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.

Note: This resource is free, but you must supply your name and email to download it from the authors' website.

2012 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study: An Analysis of Online Messaging, Fundraising, Advocacy, Social Media and Mobile Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations

This guide provides some perspective on where the field of philanthropy has been with regard to evaluation of advocacy and policy and also acknowledges the unique issues and challenges associated with measuring these efforts. In addition, this guide serves as an invitation to grantmakers to engage in and expand thinking about evaluation as it relates to advocacy and policy efforts. As seriously as many grantmakers take their investments in this area, foundations should also take seriously the need to advance evaluation of advocacy and policy work.

How does one document influence (change in policies, systems, practices and/or opinions that support one’s strategies) and leverage (investment by public and private funders in one’s strategies)?

The Colorado Trust, in an effort to better understand the field of funding advocacy and public policy work, commissioned this publication to describe strategies funders use; advantages and tradeoffs to funding advocacy; implications for funders, advocates, and evaluation; and implications for the outcomes the Colorado Trust is working towards. It identifies three buckets of funding strategies that have emerged: the policy target approach, the advocacy niche approach, and the field building approach.

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.

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:

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: