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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Measuring Political Will: Lessons from Modifying the Policymaker Ratings Method

Advocates often seek to move political will as a way to build champions who will drive their issue through the policy process. This brief shares three scenarios where a method for measuring political will was modified. It offers lessons about the tool, the process, and the kinds of products that can be created.

Beyond The Win: Pathways for Policy Implementation

When a policy moves from “the win” to implementation, the opportunity is ripe to inform and impact the policy outcomes. This brief provides strategies and tactics for advocates, funders, and evaluators to achieve and measure desired policy outcomes during the implementation phase.

The Shaping of Evaluation at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

This teaching case tells the story of the evolution of the evaluation function at the Hewlett Foundation from 2000 to 2015. It is as much the story of how one foundation’s culture shaped that evolution as it is how key leaders influenced the use of evaluation.

Tilling the Field: Lessons About Philanthropy’s Role in School Discipline Reform

Anyone concerned about how the futures of millions of children are jeopardized because of discipline practices that unfairly exclude students from U.S. public schools will be heartened by this story about how transformative change can happen. It’s a story of how students and parents, civil rights advocates, academics, policymakers and government came together – with help from philanthropy – to advance reform.

Strategy Design Amid Complexity: Tools for Designing and Implementing Adaptive Funding Strategies

Foundations need processes and tools to create and implement adaptive strategies while also addressing the core dilemmas these strategies create. This Foundation Review article offers tools to help foundations design adaptive strategies, and ideas for balancing accountability with adaptability. 

Network Evaluation in Practice: Approaches and Applications

What are success factors in building a network? What should funders support when they design network grants? How can network builders and funders tell how well a network is doing? This Foundation Review article offers a three-pillar framework for evaluating networks focused on network connectivity, health, and results. 

The Advocacy Strategy Framework

Our most downloaded resource, this brief offers a simple one-page tool for thinking about the theories of change that underlie public policy advocacy strategies. It also offers six questions that advocates, and funders working with advocates, can work through to better articulate their theories of change.

Four Tools for Assessing Grantee Contribution to Advocacy Efforts

Advocacy takes place in a complex and crowded political environment with many organizations trying to move policy on the same issue at the same time. This brief offers four tools that funders can use to get a better handle on a grantee’s contribution to an advocacy effort. 

Field of Themes: Five Early Lessons from an Innovative Advocacy Approach

Many public policy issues are so expansive and complex that they cannot be boiled down to a specific targeted strategy and require a different approach--field building. This article offers lessons about developing and deploying an advocacy field building initiative from a program officer’s perspective. 

Assessing and Evaluating Change in Advocacy Fields

Funders engaged in advocacy field building have different evaluation needs than those that aim to build specific advocacy capacities or advance a particular policy change. This resource brings together emerging ideas about how to assess advocacy fields and evaluate advocacy field-building initiatives. 

First Among Equals: The Evaluation of the McConnell Foundation Social Innovation Generation Initiative

This teaching case explores both the real and potential evaluation of a foundation strategy focused on social innovation in Canada. 

Evaluating Networks for Social Change: A Casebook

This casebook profiles nine evaluations of network effectiveness that are designed to fit with how networks develop and function.
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