Thinking Outside of the Evaluation Report Box Creating

Thinking Outside of the Evaluation Report Box: Creating a Structural Change Grantmaking Resource Guide Presented at the American Evaluation Association November 2010

Common Vision: The Idea • Establish and convene 2 regionally-based funder learning cohorts – New England Midwest – Document and model best structural change grantmaking practices for creating “healthy communities with widespread equity for all” – Allow grantmakers to set the agenda and develop the process – Provide $100, 000 to each cohort for grantmaking to test their work

Why Do It? • Conceived in response to a series of events and conversations taking place in philanthropy – Breaking down grantmaking silos – Lack of a shared understanding of concepts such as social justice – Lack of documentation about the practice of social justice philanthropy – The growing demand for metrics being made by grantmakers to their grantees

You Might Be Wondering… • Why “healthy communities with widespread equity? ” • How did we get from healthy communities to structural change? • Why would an LGBTQ organization do a project with no clear, specific LGBTQ focus?

Common Vision Process – Foundations commit to a minimum of 6 two-day meetings over two years – Incorporated evaluation into the process from the beginning • Ensure “real-time” response and recalibration • To be a resource to the cohorts as they thought about evaluation as a part of their grantmaking process • Tightly wove evaluation, facilitation and program staff to ensure incorporation of evaluation learnings into the work

Common Vision Process • Structure the meetings to correspond to the process of grantmaking STEP 1: Understanding Structural Change STEP 2: Framing Your Issue Through a Structural Change Lens STEP 3: Mapping the Field: Identify Goals, Evidence of Impact and Key Players STEP 4: Picking a Strategy to Fund STEP 5: Developing and Disseminating Your RFP STEP 6: Evaluating Proposals

Process: What Worked • Applying knowledge of what works in building communities of practice among grantmakers – And, every group is different, design had to be flexible • Creating a sense of shared accountability for the group process – Engaging participants in shifts in the agenda • Testing out approaches and tools, and then soliciting feedback from participants in real-time

Process: What Worked • Designing, administering and using the findings from convening assessments to understand participant experience and to inform design • Balancing integration of content experts with experiential learning and practice sessions • Having a combination of content, design and evaluation skills as part of the team

Process: Lessons Learned • Clarity about the nature of the “journey” – Maybe less frustration, more consistent engagement – Help individuals and organizations to determine earlier on if they were able to/or wanted to participate • Better understanding of prior grantmaking experience and knowledge of participants – Extended the timeframes for some parts of the work

Process: Lessons Learned • Clearly define roles and decision-making authority • People approach this work from a deep and personal space – Requires “care and feeding” that needs to be considered and tended to through the process • Formative evaluation notes should capture detailed mid-stream changes to process

The Role of Evaluation • Evaluators as participant observers at all convenings • Led participants through a Theory of Change process in one of first convenings • Aimed to “abstract” the cohort experience to best hone the frameworks, articulate the process, have examples of best practices and red flags

The Resource Guide • Grounded in the Common Vision experience • Each section provides insights from the Common Vision experience, tools, and examples • Includes evaluation planning tools for grantees, annotated bibliography, and glossary of key terms

The Resource Guide STEP 1: Understanding Structural Change STEP 2: Framing Your Issue Through a Structural Change Lens STEP 3: Mapping the Field: Identify Goals, Evidence of Impact and Key Players STEP 4: Picking a Strategy to Fund STEP 5: Developing and Disseminating Your RFP STEP 6: Evaluating Proposals To access the Guide to Structural Change Grantmaking: Resources, Tools and Lessons Learned from Common Vision go to www. lgbtfunders. org.

Questions? Karen Zelermyer, President and CEO Funders for LGBTQ Issues Karen@lgbtfunders. org Jara Dean-Coffey, Founder and Principal jdc. Partnerships Jara@jdc. Partnerships. com Steven La. France, Founder and Principal LFA Group: Learning for Action Steven@LFAgroup. com