“Holding Relationships at the Center of Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation” is written by a team of evaluators and practitioners from Engage R+D, Informing Change, and Expanding the Bench®, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Expanding the Bench® is an initiative dedicated to diversifying the field of evaluation... Read more »

In 2024, Informing Change prepared a report, The Regional Housing Technical Assistance (RHTA) Program: An Award-Winning Program Supporting Housing in the Bay Area, summarizing the findings of its evaluation of the RHTA program. We were commissioned by Community Planning Collaborative (CPC) to evaluate the program established by the Association of... Read more »

Three Informing Change team members (Rachel Kramer, Evan Gattozzi, and Michael Arnold) have co-authored a research brief with staff at the University of California, Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) titled “Youth Engaged in STEM and Service: A Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Summer Solar Camp Leveraging Community-Based Partnerships.” Informing Change... Read more »

The Ford Foundation commissioned Informing Change—in collaboration with Active Voice Lab—to conduct an evaluation covering five years of the JustFilms initiative (2017–2021) that seeks to take stock of JustFilms’ strategy over that time. During 2017–2021, JustFilms awarded $27.3 million to 187 films through 223 content grants, including six grants through fiscal sponsors.... Read more »

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... Read more »

In this 2022 youth impact survey report, we share findings, insights, and considerations drawn from a survey of members (ages 13–22) participating in programming at Best Buy Teen Tech Centers (TTCs) and Clubhouses: Where Technology Meets Imagination. All TTCs and Clubhouses are affiliates of The Clubhouse Network (TCN). Informing Change... Read more »

As The Clubhouse Network (TCN) approached its 30th anniversary, organization leaders engaged Informing Change to evaluate the impact of the Clubhouses on TCN alumni dating back to the program’s earliest years. Through the evaluation, we focus on TCN’s long-term impact on young people and their reflections on how the Clubhouse... Read more »

Informing Change has evaluated the Los Angeles Jewish Teen Initiative (LAJTI or the Initiative) since it began in 2015. This evaluation report, Findings from the LAJTI Evaluation – Years 6-8, covers the last three years of the Initiative, from Fall 2020 through Spring 2023, and draws primarily on qualitative data... Read more »

Grant application and reporting processes often define the exchange of information between funders and grantees. Yet, for applicants and grantees, they can be experienced as tiresome, funder-centric, a waste of time and money, and overly bureaucratic. Meanwhile, grantmakers say they don’t always read grant reports, and when they do read... Read more »

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation invited Informing Change to partner with them in the development of an updated Data Ethics Guidebook. In doing so, we considered the evolving ecosystem of values, players, and circumstances in which evaluation is now happening in philanthropy. While appreciating the insights evaluation work can... Read more »

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation invited Informing Change to partner with them in the development of an updated Data Ethics Guidebook. In doing so, we considered the evolving ecosystem of values, players, and circumstances in which evaluation is now happening in philanthropy. In addition to the Guidebook, we developed... Read more »

In 2008, the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) set out to answer a question: How could the field of Jewish camp attract and retain more teen campers? What if, posited FJC, new Jewish camps offering teen programs that dove deep into a specialty area could attract new campers and simultaneously... Read more »

Eighty reproductive or birth justice organizations supported by Groundswell Fund or via one of its grantmaking partners reflected on their work, progress made, and challenges encountered in 2021. They described the headwinds and tailwinds they faced, the allies they worked with, and their strategies. Collectively, these organizations have programs in... Read more »

Managed by the San Francisco Foundation and Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Partnership for the Bay’s Future (PBF) is an innovative and collaborative effort of philanthropic, private, nonprofit, and public sectors using racial and economic equity as the guiding influence to ensure the Bay Area is a place where everyone... Read more »

During 2020-2021, we collaborated with Open Mind Consulting to undertake a study commissioned by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program to help the Foundation better understand what has been accomplished and who benefits from the funds and services provided by intermediary partners of the Program and how... Read more »

The Achievable Health Center opened in 2013 in Culver City, California, as an innovative, licensed health center with a unique model of care, serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. The Health Center was created out of the founders’ understanding of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities... Read more »

The Denver Boulder Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Initiative (the Initiative) began in 2014 with a partnership between Rose Community Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation to fund grantees selected to be the drivers of change in the Jewish teen landscape through their teen-led programming and strong adult-teen relationships. The Initiative... Read more »

We, in partnership with Open Mind Consulting and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, researched seven organizations to learn about how they share, collaborate on, and distribute leadership. Looking through the lens of decision making, we discovered that even among this small sample, the ways of distributing power, authority, and responsibility are myriad.... Read more »

Informing Change has served as the local learning partner for five of ten Jewish Teen Initiatives in cities across the United States (Atlanta, Boston, Denver/Boulder, Los Angeles, and San Diego). These initiatives, supported by the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative, constitute a series of experiments in developing and... Read more »

Moishe House supports over 60,000 young adults around the world in creating meaningful Jewish communities for their peers. As an organization deeply committed to ongoing learning and development, Moishe House leadership engages in in-depth evaluation of their flagship program every three years to understand the program’s overall impact and opportunities... Read more »

In 2017, we collaborated on a strategic planning and theory of change process with the nonprofit Oakland Leaf, which provides quality outside-of-school programming for underserved youth with an emphasis on art, wellness, leadership, literacy, and STEM. Informed by a landscape scan of similar organizations, rapid feedback interviews with an array... Read more »

Youth Outside strives to ensure that the lived experiences of all youth are honored as part of the outdoor experience. In service of this goal, in 2012 Youth Outside began OEI as a development program to empower young adults (ages 18–24) from underrepresented communities to become outdoor leaders, and to... Read more »

There are dozens of organizational capacity assessment tools. How do you determine which one is right for your organization? We partnered with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Effective Philanthropy Group to scan the landscape of organizational capacity assessment tools and gather insights from organizational capacity professionals about the best... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »

Destiny Arts Center provides creative development to young people based in movement arts, including but not limited to dance, martial arts, and other performance or movement-based art forms—both in and out of school time—throughout the Bay Area. In 2016, Destiny Arts Center partnered with Informing Change to develop a theory of change... Read more »

Building on the success of its first pilot cohort, the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) Specialty Camps Incubator II supported four new Jewish specialty camps in moving from merely ideas to actual, functioning camps. Funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the AVI CHAI Foundation, the Incubator supported these camps based... Read more »

Over the course of its seven-year investment in improving after-school and summer learning programs (also known as expanded learning programs) for California’s K–12 students, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation invested in three linked strategies: creating models of high quality summer learning programs, cultivating a statewide network of technical assistance... Read more »

This executive summary shares top level findings from our final evaluation report of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s seven-year investment in expanded learning. Using three linked strategies—creating models of high quality summer learning programs, cultivating a statewide network of technical assistance (TA) for expanded learning, and engaging stakeholders to champion expanded... Read more »

In this case study, we draw upon our evaluation findings from the Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP) to explore how safety net healthcare organizations can successfully create and sustain data-driven cultures. The work of gaining staff buy-in—let alone training staff in different aspects of data analytics—building data infrastructure and using... Read more »

The Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP), implemented by Center for Care Innovations and funded by California Health Care Foundation, was created to help safety net organizations develop a data-driven culture and to strengthen the people, processes and technology behind data analytics. SNAP engaged 20 grantee teams to grow and develop... Read more »

The team for Contra Costa Health System’s (CCHS) Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP) had a clear goal in mind: use data to predict and address the needs of CCHS’s most high-utilizing, vulnerable patients. Meeting these high utilizers’ needs requires a range of providers to coordinate both their services and the... Read more »

The vast sea of data available to safety net healthcare providers is only helpful if staff can interpret and use that data. Enter dashboards, which enable data-sharing among staff—from frontline to administrative staff and across all departments and sites—in a consistent, visually accessible way. As one of the most-used strategies... Read more »

Expanded learning (i.e., after-school and summer learning) programs have immense potential to foster academic and social growth for students. To actualize this potential, a system of support in the form of technical assistance (TA) has emerged in California to help expanded learning providers sustain and improve their programs. Some expanded... Read more »

The early childhood years are a gateway into Jewish life for children and their families, and preschool is a prime time for young families to engage with the Jewish community. Seizing this opportunity, the Jewish Resource Specialist (JRS) Initiative endeavors to build the field of Jewish early childhood education, enhance... Read more »

As California faces the challenges of an evolving healthcare landscape, there is an unprecedented need for a committed and adaptable network of leaders in the community health centers field. To meet this need and strengthen the next generation of community health center leaders, The Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered... Read more »

Our case study on the Jewish Teen Education and Engagement Funder Collaborative shares what we have learned in studying the process and accomplishments of a group of local and national funders from ten different communities, all bound by a common overarching pursuit, but each with their own goals, strategies and structures. It details the... Read more »

Over the years we’ve had both productive and challenging experiences working with other consultants on philanthropy projects. Reflecting on these experiences, and from talking with others in the field, we wrote an article for the Foundation Review to spark the conversation on how consulting partnerships, in supporting philanthropy, take different forms and... Read more »

Funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation, the Clinic Leadership Institute’s New Executive Transitions (nEXt) program provides new community health center CEOs with knowledge, skills and networks to succeed in their positions. The year-long program consists of in-person program meetings, mentor/advisor relationships and ongoing informal networking. Informing Change’s evaluation of... Read more »

In 2013, the MacArthur Foundation engaged Informing Change to evaluate one component of its Digital Media and Learning (DML) Initiative—the DML Competition—which identifies innovators and invests in prototypes of games, mobile phone applications, virtual worlds, social networks, digital badge platforms and more in support of connected learning. Informing Change assessed the Competition’s... Read more »

In 2014, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program engaged Informing Change in partnership with Olive Grove to assess the effectiveness of the Foundation’s approach to support regranting intermediaries. The Foundation works with these regranting intermediaries to target San Francisco Bay Area small arts organizations, individual artists and communities or arts disciplines... Read more »

In fall 2012, a collection of Jewish funders—Jim Joseph Foundation, Leichtag Foundation, The Morningstar Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Schusterman Family Foundation, and UJA Federation of New York—collaborated with Hazon to conduct the first national research study on experiences that integrate Jewish outdoor, food, and environmental education (JOFEE), focusing on immersive... Read more »

In 2012, Blue Shield of California Foundation launched the Executive Excellence program (Ex2), the most recent addition to the suite of Clinic Leadership Institute programs. Administered by UCLA Anderson Executive Education, Ex2 offers a range of instruction and supports to catalyze leadership and effectiveness among executive teams in California’s community health... Read more »

From 2010 to 2014, Scaling What Works was a multi-year learning initiative of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) to expand the number of grantmakers and public sector funders who are working together to grow the impact of high-performing nonprofit organizations. Through the Initiative, GEO offered training, networking opportunities, and a host of... Read more »

In 2008 the Jim Joseph Foundation invested $10 million to create and develop new specialty camps for Jewish teens, using the concept of an incubator for a small cohort of camp entrepreneurs.  The Incubator was entrusted to the Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC), which took on the challenge to help... Read more »

Published in the Clinic Leadership Institute’s seventh year, this dashboard showcases how the program continued to develop individual leaders, strengthen sponsoring organizations and bolster California’s community health centers system so it will thrive for years to come. In the evaluation findings, highlighted by Informing Change in a data dashboard and short deck,... Read more »

In 2011, Repair the World commissioned the first major assessment of the state of volunteering in the Jewish not-for-profit community. A group of New York University graduate students from the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service designed and distributed the survey, resulting in over 200 responses. Informing Change then... Read more »

As California faces the challenges of an evolving healthcare landscape and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, there is an unprecedented need for a committed and adaptable network of leaders in the community health centers field. To meet this need, Blue Shield of California Foundation has... Read more »

In January 2012, 13 community health centers throughout California received one-year “seed” funding and support to develop innovative ideas, support “out of the box” thinking and test new solutions to common problems in health care. The Center for Care Innovation and Blue Shield of California Foundation engaged Informing Change to... Read more »

On behalf of the Jim Joseph Foundation, Informing Change collaborated with Rosov Consulting to conduct a body of research around teen education programs, identifying leading efforts inside and outside of the Jewish world that are engaging young people in experiences that are relevant, meaningful and ongoing. Twenty-one programs were chosen... Read more »

For the past few years, healthcare administrators and providers have been getting ready for the Affordable Care Act by re-examining and making changes to their current systems. They are preparing for an influx of newly insured patients, attempting to position themselves as providers of choice within their communities and working... Read more »

The Nadiv Program (Nadiv) is an innovative pilot made possible by a partnership between the Jim Joseph Foundation and the AVI CHAI Foundation and is operated by The Foundation for Jewish Camp. The collaborative Nadiv partnership created six new Jewish educator positions, Nadiv Educators, which are shared between Jewish summer... Read more »

Jewish Student Connection (JSC) aims to serve as a catalyst for Jewish teens to take ownership of their Jewish future by creating in-school educational experiences in public and private high schools. JSC’s student-run clubs provide opportunities for teens to build community, learn about Jewish history and Israel, and gain access... Read more »

Over the past four years, the Center for Care Innovations (formerly the Community Clinics Initiative) has supported creative ways of promoting health in underserved communities through their Networking for Community Health program. CCI, through generous support from The California Endowment, offered grants and non-monetary supports to community clinics across California... Read more »

The Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco launched the Clinic Leadership Institute Emerging Leaders program to prepare emerging leaders to move into executive positions. But how do the learnings from a structured leadership program translate to the... Read more »

The Pipeline Project offers the 21st Century Fellows Program to managers of color working at LGBT human rights and advocacy organizations with the intention of retaining and advancing these fellows in the field. The year-long leadership program aims to: build fellows’ leadership skills through a Rockwood Leadership Institute curriculum, create... Read more »

The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce (the L.A. Chamber) is one of the nation’s oldest and most prominent regional business advocacy organizations. In June 2011, the L.A. Chamber received a grant from the Walmart Foundation to provide summer employment opportunities for underserved 16- to 21-year olds in Los Angeles.... Read more »

The Blue Shield of California Foundation is partnering with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to design and implement the Clinic Leadership Institute Emerging Leaders program. This intensive, 18-month program prepares emerging leaders to move into executive positions within five to eight years... Read more »

As part of the evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s Networking for Community Health (NCH) program, Informing Change is examining how community clinics strengthen their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners to promote community health. This report focuses on a sub-set of NCH projects that focus on... Read more »

In 2008, the Community Clinic’s Initiative launched a $1.6 million effort, the Community Health Organizing Project, to support statewide and regional advocacy efforts around health care reform and budget issues. The Project provided funding to the California Primary Care Association (CPCA) and 15 regional clinic networks working to bring more... Read more »

Shasta Community Health Center (SCHC) engaged with Informing Change to assess the effectiveness of its Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Scribe Model, which utilize scribes to enter medical information into EHRs during patient visits. This report looks at the impact of this demonstration project on clinician and patient satisfaction with the... Read more »

In 2006, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation began to support the After School Education and Safety Program (ASES)–funded expansion of after-school programs in California. The Foundation invested in the establishment of technical assistance (TA), workforce development, and leadership infrastructure to help build a sustainable system that provides better programmatic... Read more »

As part of the evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s Networking for Community Health (NCH) program, Informing Change is examining how community clinics strengthen their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners to promote community health. This brief focuses on a sub-set of NCH projects that are engaging... Read more »

What does it really mean to treat evaluation study participants fairly, equitably and with the utmost respect? For foundation staff without deep research backgrounds, it is vital to understand whether evaluators are taking appropriate steps to protect the participants in their work. Does every study require an Institutional Review Board... Read more »

What can a community college do to ensure that its students complete their degrees and move forward into productive and fulfilling careers? Across the nation, policymakers, educators, students and their families are concerned about the low percentage of enrolled community college students who persevere to complete either a two-year or... Read more »

As part of its efforts in building the field of Jewish service-learning, Repair the World commissioned Informing Change to conduct an exploratory study on the impact of short-term immersive Jewish service-learning (IJSL) on the organizations and communities that host these groups. The study included interviews with representatives of host community... Read more »

In 2008, The Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to address leadership needs in the community clinics field. They launched the Clinic Leadership Institute (CLI), an 18-month leadership program designed to prepare next generation leaders to... Read more »

HIRE LA’s Youth, a division of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, supports youth employment by preparing applicants between the ages of 16–24 years to earn and retain entry-level employment. The multi-step preparation Work Readiness Certification (WRC) process includes resumé development, customer service skills training, workplace etiquette, application procedures... Read more »

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) launched their Networking for Community Health (NCH) grantmaking program. The program was designed to support California community clinics in strengthening their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners. Over the past three years, CCI has supported clinics’ projects that work on a... Read more »

Social websites have rapidly grown into large, sophisticated networks that can span the globe.This brief provides a snapshot of one nonprofit online community—the Community Clinic Voice. The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) supports the Voice to aid health care safety net professionals in building stronger, healthier communities. The brief explores the... Read more »

Community health workers, public health aides, promotores and peer educators are all terms used to describe the role of community health promoters. These workers are recruited from communities to apply their knowledge of the area and their personal connections with residents to promote the public’s health. The Community Clinics Initiative requested... Read more »

The Low Income Investment Fund’s ABCD Initiative supports the development of quality child care facilities in California. In this report, Informing Change took an in-depth look at one of the initiative’s strategies—Constructing Connections. Through this strategy, LIIF supported local collaborative teams consisting of child care operators, developers, civic leaders, small... Read more »

What does it take to become an effective coach in the nonprofit sector? How can coaches assess leaders’ readiness for coaching? How can coaches ensure a successful engagement? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Coaches addresses in this guide that... Read more »

How does coaching differ from other types of nonprofit supports? Why should grantmakers support coaching? When and how should coaching be used? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Grantmakers addresses in this guide that highlights the findings from the Coaching... Read more »

The Center for Leadership Innovation (TCLI), formerly known as the Development Training Institute, embarked on a pilot project to offer two types of coaching to emerging leaders of color who had completed a leadership training. TCLI alumni were given the opportunity to participate in one-on-one coaching, peer group coaching, or... Read more »

What is coaching? How can coaching contribute to my development as a nonprofit leader? What kind of coaching is right for me and my organization? How much is coaching? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Nonprofits addresses in this guide... Read more »

Evaluation done well should be so much more than documenting the activities and outputs of a grant. To the extent possible, it should leave an organization with a fuller understanding of the process and impacts of its work. Good evaluation should expand an organization’s ability to reflect on its work... Read more »

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s launched their new Networking for Community Health grantmaking program. The program provides California community clinics with two-year grants to strengthen networking efforts with other organizations to promote the health of the communities they serve. Grantees’ networks have addressed a variety of community health... Read more »

LeaderSpring’s Executive Coaching Project (ECP) complements their existing two-year leadership program for nonprofit executives who are predominantly leaders of color and/or work in communities of color. Informing Change conducted an evaluation of the ECP and found that, overall, the Executive Coaching Project is a unique and effective model for supporting... Read more »

This report offers lessons learned from the James Irvine Foundation’s Fund for Leadership Advancement Initiative. This summary is based on the full evaluation report, “Strengthening Nonprofit Leaders to Enhance Organizational Capacity.”

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of emerging leaders within the community clinics field in California. It looks at the degree to which their group of clinic staff are interested in and poised to become future CEOs, medical directors or other senior leaders in community clinics... Read more »

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of Medical Directors within California’s community clinics field. It looks at Medical director’s career pathways and their current job satisfaction, the most significant rewards and challenges of their leadership position, the extent to which they share leadership with others and... Read more »

This report describes the findings and implications from an assessment of CEOs within California’s community clinics field. It looks at CEO’s perspectives on their current position, career path and aspirations, job challenges and rewards and the types of support that are most important for them to be successful in their... Read more »

What kinds of actions taken now would ensure that community clinics have the leaders they need to meet the impending challenges of coming years? In 2008, two leading health care funders in California—the Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Community Clinics Initiative, a joint project of Tides and The... Read more »

The ABCD Story outlines the purpose, components and intended impacts of the ABCD Initiative.

In 2008, Informing Change examined the ways in which the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has sought to develop and strengthen leadership in community clinics in California. Throughout the life of the Initiative, CCI has aimed to enhance the capacities of its... Read more »

Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson was an extraordinary political leader and public servant. With help from Informing Change, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation conceptualized and produced a new publication to document Senator Jackson’s legacy of leadership in public service. In The Nature of Leadership: Lessons from an Exemplary Statesman (July 2008), interviews with... Read more »

The Jewish Resource Specialist Program (JRS) is a flagship professional development initiative of the Early Childhood Education Initiative (ECEI) of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. JRS was designed to deepen the overall Jewish experience in early childhood Jewish educational institutions and support... Read more »

In the fall of 2007, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned Informing Change to assess the landscape of Jewish Service Learning. Informing Change examined the current capacity among Jewish Service Learning practitioners and the support required to expand that... Read more »

This evaluation brief outlines how the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has been successful in effecting broad and deep social change within the community-clinics field in California. In addition to a description of CCI’s impacts and the evaluation design, the brief discusses... Read more »

During Informing Change’s multi-year evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), we observed that CCI was particularly effective in extracting knowledge and lessons while the evaluation was underway. This made their grantmaking more responsive and strategic. In this article, we identify five tactics that CCI used to ensure that the... Read more »

The Kaiser Permanente Community Clinic Partnership (the Partnership) is a collaboration of Kaiser Permanente (KP) in California and the state’s system of community clinics. KP contracted with BTW informing change to examine the Partnership experience within KP,  the clinic networks and individual clinics. The evaluation focuses on the Partnership’s first phase of... Read more »

Informing Change’s explored the issue of fiscal sponsorship; how the practice currently supports nonprofit sector work, how donors and funders perceive it, how it still holds untapped potential for public problem solving. Fiscal sponsorship—as it exists and as it could be—has a place in the independent-sector toolbox for the 21st... Read more »

Informing Change’s evaluations often include structured experiences to help participants understand the process and what can be learned from it. In this article, Informing Change’s Director of Evaluation and Organizational Learning outlines key factors for successful learning communities and describes benefits of participation to funders. This article first appeared in LEARNING, the... Read more »

In 2005, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation initiated the Coaching and Philanthropy Project to assess the use of coaching within the nonprofit sector. Coaching is a powerful strategy for cultivating strong leadership and building effective organizations, and the Foundation sought to expand the use of coaching among nonprofits. Informing Change’s research... Read more »

Informing Change conducted an examination of 21 volunteer programs nationwide to assess the true cost of organizing a high-quality volunteer program. The study helped the field better understand the implications of the President’s Call to Service for the nonprofit sector. Read the results of the review and find out what... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »

Over the last four years, Informing Change has partnered with the Health Forward Foundation (HFF, formerly the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City) to build a framework for evaluating the Foundation’s three portfolios: Safety Net, Mental Health, and Healthy Communities. Our team worked closely with each portfolio to construct... Read more »

In 2016, Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department (SCC BHSD) hired Informing Change to evaluate their School Linked Services initiative, currently implemented in 13 school districts. This initiative places at least one coordinator in each district to serve as the point of contact for students and families seeking referrals... Read more »