Browse foundation measurement Resources
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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 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.
Author: Prepared for Annie E. Casey Foundation Research by Organizational Research Services Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (255.04 KB) -
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 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) -
Advocacy Evaluation Update (Issue #4, September 2008) The fourth issue of Innovation Network's Advocacy Evaluation Update includes the following:
1) New publications from Innovation Network and The Atlantic Philanthropies;
2) a scan of available advocacy evaluation trainings (fifteen organizations included); and
3) AEA 2008 schedule, including sessions hosted by the Advocacy and Policy Change Topical Interest Group (TIG).
Author: Innovation Network Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Sep 30, 2008
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An Ecological Understanding of Evaluation Use: A Case Study of the Active for Life Evaluation This document presents a case study of use of an evaluation of Active for Life: Increasing Physical Activity Levels in Adults Age 50 and Older a program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The breadth of both the program and the evaluation created additional ways of thinking about evaluation use–what it looks like, where you find it and how to connect it.
Author: Judith Ottoson and Diane Martinez, Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (847.79 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) -
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) -
Evaluating Social Innovation In this paper, the authors explore ways that common evaluation approaches and practices constrain innovation and offer lessons about an emerging evaluation approach—developmental evaluation—which supports the adaptation that is so crucial to innovation. For what kinds of grantmaking strategies should funders consider using developmental evaluation? What organizational conditions are necessary for it to work? How can grantmakers grapple with the challenging questions that developmental evaluation raises about innovation, accountability, rigor, and adaptation? Author: Hallie Preskill and Tanya Beer Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 1, 2012 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (341.7 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 Handbook This 116-page .pdf handbook, written for evaluation novices, provides a framework for thinking about evaluation as a relevant and useful program tool. Author: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 1998 Be the first to review this resource! Download (354.1 KB) -
Evaluation Principles and Practices: An Internal Working Paper The purpose of this document is to advance the Foundation’s existing work so that our evaluation practices become more consistent across the organization. We hope to create more common understanding of our philosophy, purpose, and expectations regarding evaluation as well as clarify staff roles and available support. With more consistency and shared understanding, we expect less wheel re-creation across program areas, greater learning from each other’s efforts, and faster progress in designing meaningful evaluations and applying the results.
Author: Fay Twersky & Karen Lindblom Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 22, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.42 MB) -
From Insight to Action: New Directions in Foundation Evaluation This report highlights emerging approaches to evaluation in the field of philanthropy that increase the effectiveness of both foundations and their grantees. Author: FSG Social Impact Advisors Type: Research & Reports Date: Apr 1, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (3.67 MB) -
Integrating Evaluative Capacity Into Organizational Practice: A Guide for Nonprofit & Philanthropic Organizations & Their Stakeh This publication, Integrating Evaluative Capacity into Organizational Practice, was developed in response to the continuing need expressed by nonprofit trainees to further assess and operationalize evaluative thinking. It extends information first provided in 2006 in a series of short, electronic articles called Evaluative Thinking Bulletins. The guidebook is intended to
answer the following questions:Author: Anita Baker and Beth Bruner Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jun 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.87 MB) -
International Advocacy: Measuring performance and effectiveness This paper examines the assessment of two NGOs working in international advocacy and policy change: Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and the Foundation for Development Cooperation. The study suggests that organizations can use best practices and outcomes assessment to track the effectiveness of their advocacy work. Author: Kelly, Linda Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 30, 2002 Be the first to review this resource! Download (216.18 KB) -
Introducing Program Logic Models A six-page summary of logic model concepts prepared by the Kellogg Foundation. Author: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Mar 17, 2001
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Logic Model Development Guide A clear and concise discussion of the use of logic models and their importance for program and evaluation planning. Author: W.K. Kellogg Foundation Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2004
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Measuring Impact in Practice: A Case Study of The Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (The HSUS) is the nation’s largest animal protection organization. Just like all nonprofits, The HSUS is accountable—to the thousands of animals it helps or protects each year, and to the thousands of individual, corporate, and foundation donors who enable The HSUS to fulfill its mission of celebrating animals and confronting cruelty.
Author: Beth Rosen Cohen Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (97.59 KB) -
Measuring Impact in Practice: A Case Study of The Humane Society of the United States The Humane Society of the United States (The HSUS) is the nation’s largest animal protection organization.1
Just like all nonprofits, The HSUS is accountable—to the thousands of animals it helps or protects each year,
and to the thousands of individual, corporate, and foundation donors who enable The HSUS to fulfill its
mission of celebrating animals and confronting cruelty.Author: Beth Rosen Cohen Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 31, 2010 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (97.59 KB) -
Measuring What Counts: Meaningful Evaluation for Family Foundations Family foundations are in business to make a difference. As one family foundation leader put it, creating a family foundation is a “powerful statement about wanting to achieve impact.” Yet family foundations often get painted unfairly as not having impact, perhaps because tthey aren’t always very good at understanding or describing the impact they have, even to themselves.Author: Anne Mackinnon Type: Research & Reports Date: Nov 1, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (569.13 KB) -
Mission Possible: Evaluating Advocacy Grants This article discusses the George Gund Foundation’s efforts in persuading the Ohio state legislature to create a trust fund to support low-income needs. It highlights benefits of advocacy, specifically capturing and leveraging public resources to further policy goals. The article offers several advocacy evaluation tips to funders, including discussion and agreement on common expectations between funders and grantees, accomodations for the adaptive nature of advocacy work, and focus of contribution over attribution. Author: Egbert, Marcia and Hoechstetter, Susan Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2006 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Program Evaluation Guide A general introduction to Evaluation, this guide walks the reader through the process of answering the following seven basic questions
1. What do we want to evaluate?
2. What is the purpose of the evaluation?
3. What type of evaluation do we want to use?
4. What information do we need to answer our questions?
5. How do we get the information?
6. How will we analyze the information?
7. How will we use and share the results?Author: Katie Cangemi and Maggie Litgen Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Dec 31, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (195.46 KB) -
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)