Browse capacity 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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"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) -
"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) -
2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study: An Analysis of Online Messaging, Fundraising and Advocacy Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations Note: This resource is free, but you must supply your name and email to download it from the authors' website.
Author: M+R Strategic Services; Nonprofit Technology Network Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2008
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5 Evaluation Lessons From a Recovering Program Officer (Presentation slides) 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. Author: Will Fenn Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 17, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (4.05 MB) -
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 -
8 Steps to Develop an Evaluation Plan Innovation Network identified eight key steps in our 2005 evaluation of a U.S. federal policy change campaign. These steps may also be useful in other advocacy evaluations. Author: Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Oct 1, 2005
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A Case Study in "Grassroots" Lobbying: How MADD Fixed the Flaw in Hawaii's Drunk-Driving Law This brief case study highlights MADD's public policy situation, lobbying strategies, tactics, and outcomes. The study includes examples of key indicators for grass roots lobbying. Author: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2006
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A Case Study in Advocacy Through Public Education: How the Public Media Center Used Facts to Counter Tobacco Industry Politics This brief case study highlights how California Public Health advocates used public education to sway voter support for a ballot initiative. Author: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2006
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A Guide to Actionable Measurement Staff members from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation discuss the principles and practices they use to make decisions about data collection, analysis, and reporting. Their approach, "actionable measurement," emphasizes the collection of information for specific decisions or actions.
UPDATE: We had a broken link here. It was updated on Jan. 13, 2011.
Author: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Type: Research & Reports Date: May 10, 2010
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A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy Developed for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this guide serves as a broad call to grantmakers to build and advance the field of advocacy and policy evaluation. The guide includes sections on the context of advocacy evaluation and evaluation design. Author: Reisman, Jane, et al. Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 15, 2007
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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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Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Executive Training: Evaluating Social Programs 2009 This five-day program on evaluating social programs provides a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and pragmatic step-by-step training for conducting one's own evaluation. While the course focuses on randomized evaluations, many of the topics, such as measuring outcomes and dealing with threats to the validity of an evaluation, are relevant for other methodologies.
Courses have been recorded and loaded as videos online, split up by topic. You may also access the course lecture notes and assignments.Author: Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, & Abhijit Banerjee Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: May 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Achieving a Policy Change: Key Strategies and Factors for Success The authors, from the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco, presented the following issue brief at the American Evaluation Association 2008 conference. The document includes two case studies from an evaluation of The California Endowment's Clinic Consortia Policy and Advocacy Program between 2001 and 2006. Author: Gardner, Annette; Marshall, Nell; Geierstanger, Sara; Quinn, Holly Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2008
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ActionAid Update No. 1 The ActionAid Update newsletter series provides a summary of the impact of participatory policy work being undertaken by ActionAid, an international anti-poverty agency. The action research project was carried out over a period of three years in four countries: Brazil, Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda. In each country, a research facilitator worked with 1-3 partner organizations to explore some of the challenges they were facing with their advocacy work. Author: ActionAid International Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Jan 1, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (486.41 KB) -
ActionAid Update No. 2 The ActionAid Update newsletter series provides a summary of the impact of participatory policy work being undertaken by ActionAid, an international anti-poverty agency. The action research project was carried out over a period of three years in four countries: Brazil, Ghana, Nepal and Uganda. In each country, a research facilitator worked with 1-3 partner organizations to explore some of the challenges they were facing with their advocacy work. Author: ActionAid International Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Apr 1, 2003
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ActionAid Update No. 3 The ActionAid Update newsletter series provides a summary of the impact of participatory policy work being undertaken by ActionAid, an international anti-poverty agency. The action research project was carried out over a period of three years in four countries: Brazil, Ghana, Nepal and Uganda. In each case, a research facilitator worked with 1-3 partner organizations to explore some of the challenges they were facing with their advocacy work. Author: ActionAid International Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Jul 1, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.71 MB) -
Advocacy & Policy Change Composite Logic Model and associated materials This collaborative work by more than 50 advocates, grantmakers, and evaluators offers a way to improve communication in the advocacy evaluation field by articulating common goals, outcomes, and indicators. Supplements to the Model include guiding questions, definitions, and samples based on hypothetical advocacy situations—one each for the intended "strategy" and "evaluation" uses of the Model. There is also an online tool based on the Model.
Author: Coffman, Julia, et al. Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Apr 1, 2007
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Advocacy and evaluation: national organizations as advocates Canadian Evaluation Society's approach to advocating evaluation at the national level, focusing on transnational sharing of evaluation knowledge to promote the use of evaluation in society. Author: Joe Kpachevsky, Marie-Hélène Adrien, & Charles Lusthaus Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (33.25 KB) -
Advocacy and Policy Change This issue of Harvard Family Research Project's The Evaluation Exchange focuses entirely on advocacy evaluation. It features over two dozen articles on current evaluation practice, including theory, case studies, interviews, and practical tips. Author: Coffman, Julia (ed.) Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Mar 1, 2007
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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 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)