Resources

Building Power That’s Enduring, Not Episodic: Learnings From the Culture & Community Power Fund

How do marginalized communities build systemic power that is enduring rather than merely episodic? For many grassroots organizers, the answer is deeply rooted in culture.

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Considering Starting a 501(c)4? Case Studies

Thinking about starting a 501(c)(4) to enable a wide range of advocacy activities, including electoral advocacy? Learn from those who've already done it.

Making Collaborative Advocacy Work

For many foundations, collaboration is key to advocating for policy and practice change. But these kinds of partnerships can be challenging to execute well. This collection from GrantCraft and IssueLab brings together dozens of reports and reflection pieces about multi-party advocacy efforts; providing valuable perspective on both the sticking points and how we might move through them.

How Do You Measure Up? Finding Fit Between Foundations and Their Evaluation Functions

Foundations need to think carefully about how the structure, position, focus, resources, and practices of their evaluation functions can best fit their own needs and aspirations. This Foundation Review article, based on 2015 benchmarking research, poses questions foundations can ask to assess what they need from an evaluation function, and common areas of misalignment between needs and approaches.

501(c)(4) Strategy and Discussion Guide

This guide is for individuals, organizations, and funders interested in starting 501(c)(4) organizations. It discusses the strategic questions that must be considered in determining whether, when, and for what purpose(s) to create a 501(c)(4).

Primer on Social Welfare Organizations: Using 501(c)(4) Organizations for Good

The primer covers the big questions that advocates and funders ask, including how 501(c)(4)s are unique, what kinds of activities they can undertake, who donates to them, and what rules govern donor disclosure. Brief descriptions of real-world examples help illustrate how (c)(4)s have played key roles in advancing causes such as marriage equality and immigration reform.

No More Half Measures

Funders can get better at designing grantmaking strategies that meet the dual demands of advocacy capacity needs and the realities of the policy and political landscape. This brief explores how funders can support policy campaigns while also building advocacy capacity, instead of just picking one approach or the other.

Could Foundations Have Mounted A Better Defense of the Affordable Care Act?

The Atlantic Philanthropies sought to explore what supportive funders did to advance the ACA’s odds of success following enactment. The author focused on a mix of national funders and those that worked in selected states, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Community Catalyst, The California Endowment and The Atlantic Philanthropies itself.

Evaluating Legal Advocacy: A How-To Guide for Evaluators, Funders and Advocates

This brief by TCC Group introduces an evaluation framework for legal advocacy, along with information about how legal advocacy evaluators can use various approaches to evaluate these strategies.

Stepping into the Fight: A Guide for Nonprofits to Understand and Engage in Legal Advocacy

TCC Group describes how legal advocacy can be a synergistic partner to other advocacy strategies, including legislative advocacy, grassroots mobilizing, public awareness and education, and media campaigns. The guide dives into how advocacy organizations can think about engaging in legal advocacy and look at their own readiness to engage in this work.

Stepping into the Fight: A Funder’s Guide for Understanding and Supporting Legal Advocacy

This guide from TCC Group introduces funders to the concept of legal advocacy, what questions funders should ask themselves to know if the foundation is ready to fund legal advocacy, and how to best support legal advocacy.

Benchmarking Foundation Evaluation Practices: 2015 Benchmarking Data

The result of a partnership between the Center for Effective Philanthropy and Center for Evaluation Innovation, this report offers a comprehensive look at foundation evaluation practices, based on 2015 survey data from 127 senior evaluation and program staff at foundations. 

Oh for the Love of Sticky Notes! The Changing Role of Evaluators Who Work with Foundations

Julia Coffman, founder of the Center for Evaluation Innovation, illustrates evaluators’ changing roles in the context of her own experiences as a long-time evaluator in philanthropy. This article published on Medium examines the history of evaluation in philanthropy, and the implications of role changes for evaluator skills, expertise, and boundaries.
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