More than ever, nonprofits need to assess, reflect on, sharpen and communicate about their work—to better meet their missions, satisfy demands from multiple stakeholders and ensure their sustainability. In this context, data are becoming increasingly valuable as currency across the nonprofit world. Yet, nonprofits’ ability to collect, understand and use data often falls far behind the needs. Most nonprofits stand…

When complex, external factors—ranging from policies and economic shifts to technological advances and environmental changes—come crashing through a program’s implementation, data from a traditional, summative evaluation can become obsolete and even counter-productive. Enter developmental evaluations, which deliver feedback on how an intervention fits within the broader system it’s trying to affect and, in turn, reveal pathways for change that more…

This fall, Dr. Michael P. Arnold joined the Informing Change team, and after a few weeks of settling in, he and I sat down to chat about why strategic learning and evaluation are important, and what motivates and shapes the way he does his work. What drives you to help organizations evaluate and learn about their work? I have a deep…

Our heads are spinning and our hearts are heavy. Rather than celebrating a shattered glass ceiling, we feel the weight of a lower one bearing down on us. This election is a reminder that real change is almost never linear and steady. It happens in fits and spurts—in maddening steps backward for every relentless push forward. This week, we have…

The California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) funded Center for Care Innovations (CCI) to develop a 14-month, cohort-based learning program for safety net healthcare organizations to strengthen their data analytics capabilities to improve patient care. CCI recently launched datadrivenculture.org, which adapts SNAP’s curriculum and learning tools into an online, webinar format for any organization to use. There are videos and tools…

The air is crisp and the days are shorter, which means at Informing Change, we’re working hard to prepare for AEA 2016. This year, Senior Associate Theresa Esparrago Lieu, Director Anjie Rosga and I will be traveling to Atlanta to compare notes with evaluators from around the world on what can happen when we bring design and evaluation together to…

Last month, organizations across the US celebrated Summer Learning Day, a nationally recognized day to raise awareness and support for summer learning and enrichment. We, along with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, commemorated the day by releasing More Than Supply and Demand: The State of Technical Assistance for Expanded Learning Programs in California. In our nine-year engagement with the…

As a graduate student in evaluation, I find myself often pondering how research on evaluation can or should enrich evaluation practice. So, during my summer internship at Informing Change, I organized a pop-up journal club—an opportunity for evaluators to read and discuss evaluation research with their colleagues. I circulated a few theory papers via email and the group elected to…

The recently-released monograph by Jill Blair and Malka Kopell The collective impact movement is beginning to shift the landscape of place-based investment. It is proving its greatest value as a formula for building community capacity to solve public problems. However, in order for communication, resources and action to move across the various players in collective impact efforts, a healthy civic…

Navigating the power dynamics between consultants, grantees and funders is already a challenge with any consulting engagement. Add to those relationships a partnership and consultants’ existing relationships with funders and grantees, and communication and transparency between all parties become more important than ever. By Natalie Blackmur A funder should not assume that each consultant in a partnership has the same…

Our primary motivation for publishing our article about philanthropy-consulting partnerships in the Foundation Review was to start the conversation on what makes a good partnership. Without the following essential elements for success, philanthropy-consulting partnerships risk becoming burdensome and ineffective for both the funder and the consultants. By Natalie Blackmur A funder’s decision to tap a philanthropy-consulting partnership for a project should be…

To accompany our Foundation Review article, we’re doing a series of mini-infographics on philanthropy-consulting partnerships. Why engage in a philanthropy-consulting partnership? Here’s our answer: By Natalie Blackmur Consultants often reach out to one another in order to take on a project they couldn’t take on alone. This gives each consultant experience he or she wouldn’t otherwise have. For funders, not…

Over the years we’ve had both productive and challenging experiences working with other consultants on philanthropy projects. Based on these experiences, and in talking with other consultants in the field, we realized there’s a noticeable gap in the literature on how to navigate these philanthropy-consulting partnerships. This prompted us to write an article for the Foundation Review to spark the…

As part of welcoming our new director, Anjie Rosga, to the Informing Change family, I sat down with her to chat about what she’s bringing to our practice, why she’s committed to evaluation and learning and what makes the Bay Area home for her. What most excites you about working at Informing Change? The way Informing Change aligns its mission and values externally and…

Sample Size and Representativeness When it comes to how big a survey sample should be, a couple of factors come into play. In my last post, I talked about the importance of power in statistical significance tests. In sum: a bigger sample is usually better—there’s more of an opportunity to discern relationships. However, if we have a big sample but only…