Knowledge Items
for Evaluation

Evaluating Social Innovation

Hallie Preskill, Tanya Beer

Developmental evaluation offers a new approach to evaluating social innovations in complex, multi-actor, and dynamic environments.

Report

Webinar

Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement and Social Impact

Mark Kramer, Lalitha Vaidyanathan

To achieve the results necessary to solve today's largest social challenges, coordinated evaluation approaches involving multiple stakeholders are required.

Report

Executive Summary

Webinar

Practical Guide for Engaging Stakeholders in Developing Evaluation Questions

Hallie Preskill, Nathalie Jones

Engaging stakeholders early on allows organizations to develop measurement processes that are more relevant, credible and useful.

Report

Webinar

The Foundation Performance Dashboard: Vital Statistics for Social Impact

Fay Hanleybrown

Foundations are unsure how to bridge the chasm between the readily available and concise metrics for investment performance and the much more complex, expensive, and subjective data from internal operations and program evaluations.

Report

Trustee Evaluation Toolkit

Mark Kramer, Eva Nico, Samantha Nobles-Block

Trustees and foundations need innovative evaluation approaches to make strategic decisions, better plan work, improve implementation and track progress.

Report

Toolkit

Webinar

From Insight to Action: New Directions in Foundation Evaluation

Mark Kramer, Rebecca Graves, Jason Hirschhorn, Leigh Fiske

After a year of research and nearly 100 interviews with foundation leaders and evaluation experts, FSG has released a report that identifies a fundamental transition in the way foundations use evaluation. 

Report

Collective Impact: Implementing Shared Measurement

Fay Hanleybrown

This webinar is focused on the process of designing and implementing innovative shared measurement models, a key condition for collective impact.

Webinar

Presentation

Focusing on What Matters Webinar

Soliciting input from stakeholders early on in the evaluation process results in more successfully involving stakeholders for improving program effectiveness, affecting policy decisions, and instituting behavioral change.

Webinar

Presentation

Case Studies: How Four Community Information Projects Went from Idea to Impact

Amber Johnson Binkley, Carina Wendel, Madeleine Taylor, Hallie Preskill, John Kania

Case studies of local news and information projects supported by community foundations

Report

Knight Foundation Client Video

Mayur Patel, VP of Strategy and Assessment at Knight Foundation, discusses working with FSG on a developmental evaluation of their Community News and Information project.

Video

Communicating Education Metrics

Jason Lee, Hallie Preskill, Rebecca Graves

New research highlights eight innovative tools that allow users to communicate social metrics effectively to a wide range of users.

Report

Executive Summary

Evaluating Social Innovation: Insights from the Field

Learn how funders and evaluators have implemented Development Evaluations of complex social innovations.

Webinar

2011 Client Project Highlights

Highlights of FSG’s client project work from 2011; social impact projects that range from improving education in Oregon to fighting malaria.

Video

Boosting the Immunization Workforce: Lessons from the Merck Vaccine Network - Africa

Leigh Fiske, Amanda Rinderle, Greg Hills

Lessons for the field from ten years of immunization workforce training in Africa.

Report

IMPACT: A Practical Guide to Evaluating Community Information Projects

Katelyn Mack, Ellen Martin, Hallie Preskill, John Kania

Four essential steps to collecting useful information about the effectiveness and impact of community-based information and media efforts.

Report

Learning From an Adaptive-Consultative Approach

Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Hallie Preskill

This article describes a creative relationship between the Ball Foundation and the Rowland Unified School District, based on the concept of “adaptive leadership".

Article

Readiness for Organizational Learning and Evaluation Instrument (ROLE)

Hallie Preskill

This instrument is designed to help an organization determine its level of readiness for implementing organizational learning and evaluation practices and processes that support it.

Toolkit

Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement Systems Webinar

Mark Kramer

Learn how innovative new performance measurement trends in evaluation are enabling nonprofit organizations to measure their performance with a common system of metrics.

Webinar

Presentation

Opportunities for Foundation Leadership

Jeff Cohen, Nathalie Jones, Leslie Crutchfield

These three case studies show how community foundations, working to create more informed and engaged communities, contributed to transforming their own institutions.

Report

2011 Reports from the Field: Place-based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge

John Kania, Katelyn Mack, Ellen Martin, Marina Pol Longo, Hallie Preskill

This second annual report highlights lessons learned from the Knight Community Information Challenge.

Report

The Evaluation of Capacity Building Grants

Rebecca Graves, Henry Culbreath

Many foundations now have programs aimed at capacity building for their grantees. FSG's analysis of the Maine Community Foundation (MCF) highlighted three basic lessons that can increase the likelihood of success for any capacity building initiative.

Report

Benchmarking Philanthropy

John Kania

Benchmarking philanthropic performance against industry peers is extremely helpful in finding ways to increase both the business and social benefit of every dollar the company contributes.

Article

Allocating Resources in a Time of Scarcity

Mark Kramer, John Kania

In tough times foundations should concentrate their giving in those areas in which their expertise, relationships, and grantees create the greatest value.

Article

Managing for Learning and Impact

Stef Steyaert, Mark Hongenaert, Tinne Vandensande, Wouter Van den Berghe, Valerie Bockstette, Marc Pfitzer, Hallie Preskill

Over the past three years, the King Baudouin Foundation has developed a more systematic approach for the evaluation of its projects, which FSG helped codify in the KBF Project Management Guide: ‘Managing for Learning and Impact’.

Report

Webinar zum Thema Evaluation

Valerie Bockstette

Valerie Bockstette und Barbara Buchsteiner, Leiterin der AG Evaluation in der BürgerStiftung Hamburg, beschreiben ihren lernorientierten Evaluationsansatz.

Webinar

Columbus Survey 2010 Results: Guideposts Point to Growth

Rebecca Graves, Hollie Marston

What changes in assets, gifts, and grants did community foundations experience in 2010 given the economic recovery? This report is an analysis of 2010 data gathered through the Columbus Survey.

Report

Making Evaluation Work: Trustee Toolkit Presentation

Mark Kramer, Eva Nico

Mark Kramer and Eva Nico offer tools and tips for more effective grantmaking in this presentation from a webinar hosted by the Form of Regional Associations of Grantmakers.

Presentation

Why Do We Measure? An Ecosystem Perspective

FSG's Adeeb Mahmud moderates a discussion on the role of shared measurement systems at the Aspen Insititute's ANDE Metrics & Evaluation Conference.

Video

Moving From Insight to Action

Mark Kramer

Mark Kramer shares specific examples of nonprofits that have turned evaluations into opportunities for synergy and creativity in this podcast from the Stanford Discussions series.

Podcast

Activity-Based Costing Toolkit

The Activity-Based Costing toolkit enables you to do an in depth assessment of your community foundation’s products and services and provides data to make informed decisions and improve sustainability.

Toolkit

Communicating Education Metrics - Executive Summary

Jason Lee, Hallie Preskill, Rebecca Graves

New research highlights eight innovative tools that allow users to communicate social metrics effectively to a wide range of users.

Executive Summary

Report

The Value of Early Childhood Indicators: Guiding Action Webinar

This webinar focused on the emerging trends in the field of early learning indicators and how these indicators are being used to support the healthy development and achievement of young children.

Webinar

Presentation

Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement and Social Impact - Executive Summary

Mark Kramer, Marcie Parkhurst, Lalitha Vaidyanathan

To achieve the dramatic results necessary to solve today's largest social challenges, coordinated evaluation approaches involving multiple stakeholders are required.

Executive Summary

Evaluation of UN Women's Work on Gender Responsive Budgeting in India

Lalitha Vaidyanathan, Veronica Borgonovi, Akanksha Thakore, Katya Balasubramanian, Malika Anand

Mixed-methods evaluation of UN Women’s Gender-Responsive Budgeting work in India from 2001-2011.

Report

Focusing on What Matters Presentation

This presentation was created for the Focusing on What Matters webinar which brought to life the step-by-step stakeholder engagement process described in A Practical Guide for Engaging Stakeholders in Developing Evaluation Questions.

Presentation

Webinar

Catalyzing the New Mobility in Cities

Benjamin de la Peña, Robert Albright

This report focuses on innovative business and service models that are beneficial to the urban poor, both as users and providers of urban transportation.

Report

The Arizona Community Foundation Shared Measurement Project

Learn how The Arizona Community Foundation’s Project SAM worked with FSG to build a shared measurement system for a cohort of nonprofit organizations.

Video

A Multidisciplinary Model of Evaluation Capacity Building

Hallie Preskill, Shanelle Boyle

A framework for designing and implementing evaluation capacity building activities is provided.

Article

Evaluate More Strategically

FSG’s Efrain Gutierrez presented a webinar on May 2nd, 2013 for the American Evaluation Association on the concept of Strategic Learning and Evaluation Systems.

Webinar

The Value of Early Childhood Indicators: Guiding Action Presentation

This presentation was created for the The Value of Early Childhood Indicators: Guiding Action webinar which focused on the emerging trends in the field of early learning indicators.

Presentation

Webinar