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Tags: Capacity Building, Data Driven, Evaluation, Evidence, Failure, i4, Knowledge Management, Philanthropy, Planning, Research, Strategic Communication, Theory of Change | Category: Articles, Resources By Michael C. Gilbert, Andie Whitley, & Mike Bergfors
For most of this year, The Gilbert Center has been conducting large scale research into the practices of major U.S. grantmakers. In advance of our forthcoming report, we have already published the bibliography and an inspiring set of annotated quotations from foundation leaders. In this piece, we’re giving you a look at our methodology and a tiny glance at some of the results.
We all want to know that we’re making a difference. Trustees of major private foundations and donors to community foundations have the same desires for some kind of confidence in their work. For many years now, there have been movements, discussions, and countless initiatives meant to help move grantmakers toward greater rigor in the methods they use to determine whether they are truly making a difference.
Several leading organizations in this field should be mentioned for their collaborative efforts. In particular, the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the Glass Pockets Project, and others have promoted collaboration, evidence based research, and transparency. Specific foundations have helped lead the way as well, but I’ll wait until a future article to talk about them. Suffice it to say, there is a lot going on in this field.
| * On the Use of the Concept of “Evidence” Rather than “Data”.
At The Gilbert Center, we’re leaning toward the use of the word “evidence” (and the phrase “evidence-based”) rather than the word “data” (and the phrase “data-driven”). Both of these rhetorical devices come from the same core commitment, but ultimately we think there is an important distinction worth highlighting. Data may be vital to building evidence, but evidence is about more than just data. Data sounds like bean counting. Evidence sounds like reasoning. Indeed, plenty of agencies are driven by data, but how often is it the right data? (I’m certain you all have examples of this, but fundraising expense ratios are an obvious one.) By its nature, evidence is relevant to questions of outcomes and causality and is thus a more demanding standard. It is related to effectiveness, whereas data might just be about outputs. Overall, the notion of being “evidence-based” may seem like a subtle distinction, but it may also be a more mature approach overall. |
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As you might have gathered from our recent articles on the topic, The Gilbert Center has been engaged these last few months in a fairly ambitious project: to measure both the rhetorical and material commitment of the largest U.S. foundations to evidence-based* grantmaking.
Methodology: What Goes Into the Score
The guiding principle of our research methodology concerned our process for gathering data. As mentioned, we tried to stay away from self-assessment as a primary source. Although our … [Continue reading...]
By Michael C. Gilbert & Mike Bergfors
This is the fourth in a series of “Metrics Makeovers” published by The Gilbert Center. The purpose of this series is to take metrics and metrics visualizations produced by (or for) civil society organizations and use them as opportunities to explore ideas for improved communication of data analysis. In this edition, we take apart the work of Daring to Lead, a groundbreaking project of CompassPoint and the Meyer Foundation.
Daring to Lead is a ten year, ongoing collaboration of CompassPoint, an extraordinary 35 year-old technical assistance agency, and the Meyer Foundation, a visionary grantmaker that focuses on leadership and effectiveness in community-based nonprofits. Together, they have surveyed thousands of executive directors, releasing studies in 2001, 2006, and 2011.
Based on over 3000 responses, the results from the third Daring to Lead survey have been released in a series of Briefs. This Makeover concerns itself with Brief #3, The Board Paradox. The Brief communicates these key findings: (1) Executive directors give their boards high marks for performance in general, but low marks when asked about specifics. (2) Most executive directors aren’t spending “significant” amounts of time on board relations and development. (3) Executive directors who do spend more time with the board report greater satisfaction with board performance.
In support of that last finding, they offer the following graphic: … [Continue reading...]
By Michael C. Gilbert & Mike Bergfors
This is the third in a series of “Metrics Makeovers” published by The Gilbert Center. The purpose of this series is to take metrics and metrics visualizations produced by (or for) civil society organizations and use them as opportunities to explore ideas for improved communication of data analysis. In this edition, we take apart the work of The Boston Foundation.
In 2008, The Boston Foundation published a report entitled Boston’s Education Pipeline: A Report Card (114 page PDF), as part of The Boston Indicators Project. Based on the first comprehensive research of its kind on human workflow of the Boston public school population (the “education pipeline”), the report is a genuinely remarkable piece of work.
The results, as one might expect in this time in U.S. history, form a rich and rigorous call to action. It provides for deep … [Continue reading...]
By Mike Bergfors & Michael C. Gilbert
This is the second in a series of “Metrics Makeovers” to be published by The Gilbert Center. The purpose of this series is to take metrics and metrics visualizations produced by (or for) civil society organizations and use them as opportunities to explore ideas for improved communication of data analysis. We started by ripping into some of our own graphics. This time we take apart the work of Clean Air Cool Planet.
In June of 2011, Clean Air Cool Planet published a report entitled Preparing for the Changing Climate: A Northeast-Focused Needs Assessment (a 54 page PDF). Funded by the Kresge Foundation, this report describes the results of interviews and surveys conducted in over 200 communities in the Northeast region of the United States.
In the section on State Government, the following graph (called Table 2.1 in the original report) is used to … [Continue reading...]
By Mike Bergfors & Michael C. Gilbert
This is the first in a series of “Metrics Makeovers” to be published by The Gilbert Center. The purpose of this series is to take metrics and metrics visualizations produced by (or for) civil society organizations and use them as opportunities to explore ideas for improved communication of data analysis. Given the inevitable critical nature of this endeavor, we felt it was only fair to start with our own work.
In April 2008, we published Doing Well by Doing Good?: A Report on Work Satisfaction in Civil Society. The report was filled with charts communicating its key findings. In this Metrics Makeover, we’ll make some … [Continue reading...]
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