In 2022, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (the Foundation) commissioned Informing Change to conduct a summative evaluation of its Cyber Initiative (the Initiative). The Foundation created the Initiative in 2014 ith the objective of establishing a cyber field of multidisciplinary experts with the necessary knowledge, expertise, and reach to inform policymakers and the public about pressing cyber issues. The Initiative was originally intended to invest a total of $20 million over a five-year period, with an additional $45 million investment in three core academic institutions to support one of three key strategies. In 2017, with a clearer understanding of the need and potential for impact in the cyber field, Hewlett extended the Initiative an additional five years (through 2023) and increased its budget. The Initiative ended up investing over $160 million in grants and contracts.

The Foundation wanted to understand the Initiative’s evolution and how the decisions Hewlett staff made throughout the Initiative influenced and affected its outcomes and overall results. Because so much information had already been collected in previous evaluation engagements, the Foundation agreed Informing Change should focus its efforts on an in-depth review and synthesis of prior (often quantitative) data, supplementing this with new qualitative data collection.

Informing Change engaged an Advisory Committee comprised of six Initiative grantees and field experts to help guide the evaluation and ensure clarity and relevance to multiple audiences. Advisory Committee members provided input on the evaluation plan, evaluation questions, and interview protocols.

The following high-level evaluation questions guided Informing Change’s work:

1. To what extent, and in what ways, did the Initiative achieve its goal of cultivating a multi-disciplinary cyber policy field of institutions to which decision-makers can turn, and in which they and the public may place justified confidence?

2. What contributed to the Initiative’s successes, and what factors inhibited or thwarted success?

3. How, and to what extent, did the Initiative contribute to elevating the profile and visibility of cyber topics and concerns in the media and the general public discourse?

4. What lessons learned through the Initiative might inform the Foundation’s other grantmaking and/or other funders’ choices and grantmaking processes?

Click the View Report and Executive Summary button to view the publications in full. For more information on this project, visit the retrospective section on the Foundation’s website.