Flying back from the Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s National Conference, I reflected on the conversations I had about how to support nonprofits to enhance their effectiveness. I was particularly struck by the last session, “Can’t We All Play Nice: Reducing Government Barriers to Working with Nonprofits,” which highlighted the disproportionate amount of nonprofit support from the public sector as compared…

For those of us immersed in the evaluation field, we know that a well-executed evaluation can do much more than serve as a method of accountability or fulfill a requirement. Especially in the field of philanthropy, a comprehensive evaluation can facilitate continuous learning within foundations and the field at large, increase the effectiveness of a grantmaking strategy, and increase innovation.…

The corporate world is notorious for collecting metrics to guide their business strategy. This is evident by executives’ fixation on cost-benefit analyses, return on investment reports and performance measurements. However, this rigor often seems to be absent when it comes to corporate giving programs. A report by the Global Reporting Initiative, the University of Hong Kong and CSR Asia notes…

While the importance of networks to advance social change seems well accepted, how to assess their effectiveness is not. In a recent webinar I held on cultivating networks with Claire Reinelt from the Leadership Learning Community and Melanie Moore from See Change, many participants asked questions about measurement. How do we know if the networks have an impact? What is…

My college basketball brackets have busted. I’m disgusted and embarrassed. Why is it that people who select their brackets on the basis of uniform colors or mascots tend to do just as well or better than those who spend hours poring over stats or those who have at least a basic understanding of sports? “They call it March Madness for…

I was reminded recently, when my project team switched the response scale for a survey question from an agreement scale to a frequency scale that, too often evaluators focus on developing survey questions while giving less attention to response options. When agreement scales are used as the fail safe response option, the result can be high-quality questions without the most…

The topic of human rights protection often evokes images of poor and disadvantaged individuals and the activities conducted and laws passed to ensure that they are not mistreated. A less common image is that of evaluators collecting data from and about these very same individuals, yet this is also a real piece in the human rights protection puzzle. Evaluations of…

In the past few days, we have been drawn to the somber news of Steve Jobs’ passing. We listen to the story of his life, finding inspiration from its twists and turns. Jobs’ 2005 Stanford commencement address, in particular, caught my attention, with its straight-forward references to the certainty of death and how to gain inspiration from death’s imminence. “If…

Technology is one of my favorite things. I love to “geek-out” and have conversations about how to use new technology in evaluation projects, such as new updates to online survey software and social media tracking strategies for community organizing projects. My technology toolbox is well stocked and constantly growing. Often I am tempted to use these tools simply because I…

Recently I ran, or to be more accurate, “sort of ran and mostly walked” the Bay to Breakers, the infamous 12K race in San Francisco. After navigating the course with my 11-year old daughter and more than 50,000 others, I found myself thinking about ways to engage diverse communities in social change efforts. While the race is clearly different from…

I’ve used this space in the past to take a critical look at philanthropic practice and what foundations can do better. Well, hold on to your hats…today I’m writing about something they’ve done well. A couple months ago, shortly after the shellacking President Obama took in the polls, I was watching television and came across a familiar face: Oprah’s B.F.F.…

“Deliver on the promise of a quality education.” Thus proclaimed LeShawn Routé Chatmon, Executive Director of The National Equity Project (formerly BayCES), echoing the organization’s mandate at its inspirational re-naming event held on Friday, October 29 in downtown Oakland. Informing Change is proud to have been a supporter of this event; Informing Change Managing Director, Lande Ajose, currently serves on…

On October 17, the film Waiting for Superman opened in 27 cities. It has been hailed as the most significant documentary since Davis Guggenheim directed the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The film is being credited with reinvigorating the national debate about the state of public education. As many efforts get underway and commitments to change are made,…

Recently, I’ve been thinking about new tools that can help present information in a visually engaging way. More than ever before, we are able to easily and cheaply gather and share such information. This has generated vast amounts of visual content; on YouTube alone, 24 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. However, as we know, more of anything doesn’t…

Everyday, information permeates most aspects of our lives. Rapid advances in technology and our resulting ability to collect and share information takes place at a scale that was hard to imagine, even ten years ago. For many of us, this information explosion results in a “love-hate” relationship that oscillates between invigorating and overwhelming depending on the moment. The Economist’s recent…