Strategic Evaluation

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

Measuring Innovation: Evaluation in the Field of Social Entrepreneurship

Mark Kramer

This paper provides an overview of evaluation practices in social entrepreneurship and highlights ways that this new thinking might both inform and benefit from other approaches to evaluation among foundations.

Report

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

Toward a New Approach to Product Development Partnership (PDP) Performance Measurement

Kyle Peterson, Marc Pfitzer, Laura Herman, Patty Russell, David Zapol, Mike Stamp

This report highlights new approaches to measuring the performance of product development partnerships, multi-sector collaborations developing products for neglected diseases.

Report

Community-Based Philanthropy and the Knight Community Information Challenge

Justin Bakule, John Kania, Ellen Martin, Hallie Preskill

Community and place-based foundations transform into high impact catalysts for change, by engaging with a broad range of community stakeholders.

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

Advancing Good Governance: How Grantmakers Invest in the Governance of Nonprofit Organizations

Kathy K. Hedge, Eva Nico, Lindsay Fox

Many nonprofits and grantmakers are engaging in nonprofit board development activities to transform the social sector and achieve dramatic results.

Report

Executive Summary

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

Scaling Social Impact

Mark Kramer

The business metaphor has imprisoned much new thinking in the social sector – and the limitations are most apparent in this widespread ambition, shared by many funders and nonprofit leaders alike, of “going to scale” through rapid organizational growth.

Article

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

Museum Evaluation Without Borders

Hallie Preskill

This article invites readers to think outside of evaluation’s current boundaries and to see the deep connectedness between what museums hope to achieve and how we evaluate the extent to which these aspirations may be realized.

Article

When Success is Only an Intermediate Goal

Kyle Peterson, Laura Herman, Matthew Clark

This article describes FSG’s work with Medicines for Malaria Ventures (MMV), which led to a broadened definition of success, a deepened perspective on MMV’s core mission, and new approach to performance management. 

Report

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

Mapping Grantee Clusters

Mark Kramer

Foundations can boost impact and sharpen strategy by explicitly mapping clusters of grantees and managing the clusters.

Article

Understanding Mexican Culture to Improve the Interview Experience

FSG's Efrain Gutierrez presents a webinar for the American Evaluation Association on understanding Mexican culture to improve the interview experience with Mexicans.

Webinar

Due Diligence Done Well

The guide underlines the value of a streamlined approach to due diligence that balances a grantmaker’s information needs with the added burden on the grantee.

Report

Helping to Prevent a Culture of Inadequacy

Mark Kramer

Foundations often complain about the inefficiency and “lack of scale” that characterize many of the small organizations they support. Yet seldom do they recognize that their own philosophy of giving may be one cause of the problem.

Article

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

Strategic Learning and Milking Cows

FSG's Efrain Gutierrez presentation from the 2012 Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) Conference.

Video

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

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