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Evaluation Roundtable

Resources

  • Publication

When AI Augments Philanthropy: Disrupting the Typical Traps That Constrain Our Systems Change Strategies

Philanthropy has made systems change a fixture of its strategies, portfolios, and conferences, and yet the systems it seeks to influence keep behaving in remarkably durable ways. AI arrives at this moment as both an opportunity and a risk.
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  • Insight

Peer learning as a change strategy: three lessons from regional funder communities of practice.

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  • Publication

Action Resource: This is How We Build Power

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  • Insight

Announcing CEI’s next Executive Director: Dr. Hanh Cao Yu

CEI is thrilled to announce our incoming Executive Director: Dr. Hanh Cao Yu! Effective October 1, 2024, Hanh will lead all aspects of CEI’s efforts in partnering with philanthropy to provide changemakers the space and resources needed to advance racial justice and create an equitable future.
  • Publication

Making Visible Philanthropy’s Hidden and Conflicting Mental Models for Systems Change

When we don’t make our mental models visible, we risk undermining our efforts. We see two mental models for systems change being used in philanthropic sector—the systems dynamics mental model and the systems emergence mental model.
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  • Publication

Learning Habits for Equity

A complement to a previous CEI resource on five essential learning habits, this brief shows how these learning habits (making thinking visible, asking powerful questions, combating biases, attending to causal inference, answering the now what question) can be used to help advance equity.
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  • Teaching Case

Evolution not Revolution: Strategy, Learning, and Evaluation in The California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities Initiative

This teaching case focuses on how learning and evaluation can guide those in philanthropy seeking to rise to the demands of more inclusive approaches to social change, especially with communities that have been historically marginalized.
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  • Publication

On Equity in Contracting with Small and Solo Local Evaluation Firms: An Open Letter to Funders

Standard funding and contracting practices often stand in the way of success for small, solo, and local firms. This open letter to funders explores the strengths of these firms and their roadblocks, and offers recommendations for creating the conditions for them to thrive.
  • Publication

2023 Benchmarking Foundation Learning & Evaluation Practices

The most comprehensive review of evaluation and learning practices at foundations, this report offers benchmarking data on foundation learning and evaluation practices collected in 2023.
  • Publication

Using Developmental Evaluation to Support Adaptive Strategies: An Application from a Social Change Initiative

The chapter, authored by and written from the perspective of both strategists and evaluators, describes the methods used, how the evaluation informed strategy, and reections and lessons on the developmental evaluation experience and approach.

Using Discourse Analysis to Assess Narrative Change: Humanistic Methods

Discourse analysis is a valuable tool for understanding sociocultural narratives and learning how they can strengthen social justice efforts to work toward lasting change. The humanities offer a useful suite of methods for evaluating and contributing to the work of narrative change.
  • Publication

Supporting Advocacy Ecosystems to Build Power

Organizers need the support of other actors—professional advocates, think tanks and policy shops, researchers, communications firms, funders, evaluators, and others—to recognize the critical role of organizing and to share the long-term goal of building people power.

An Advocate’s Takeaways on Advocacy Evaluation Practices and Needs

A long-time advocate and advocacy evaluation trainer offers three takeaways about advocates' evaluation practices, priorities, and needs.
  • Publication

Amplifying Nonprofit Voices: Bridging the Advocacy Evaluation Gap

To better understand advocates’ perspectives and bridge the gap between their evaluation needs and the field of evaluation practice, this research surveyed U.S. nonprofit advocates and recommends six ways that the advocacy evaluation field can shift toward more advocate-focused practice.
  • Publication

Toward Power-Shifting Solidarity with Black-Led Change

This research considers the question: What will it take for institutional philanthropy in MN and beyond to move at the speed of courage and invest wholly in Black lives?
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