“A
Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy”
As more foundations and nonprofits have engaged in
advocacy and policy work to address public issues
and effect social change, there is a growing desire to gauge the
impact of investments in this area. How to evaluate the effectiveness
of advocacy and policy work is an emerging question of interest
within the philanthropic and nonprofit audiences. Answering
that question, however, has proven difficult because relatively
few instructive resources exist to help those who wish to measure
progress in this area.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation commissioned this guide to help determine
meaningful ways to measure and evaluate the impact of
its advocacy and public policy grantmaking. Although a primary intent of this guide
is to contribute practical guidance to the Annie E. Casey Foundation
regarding evaluation of the Foundation’s investments, this guide
also serves as a broad call to grantmakers to build and
advance the field of evaluation in this area.
The overall purpose of this guide is twofold. To help grantmakers think
about and talk about measurement of advocacy and policy, this guide
puts forth a framework for naming outcomes associated with advocacy
and policy as well as directions for evaluation design. The framework
is intended to provide a common way to identify and talk about outcomes,
providing philanthropic and nonprofit audiences an opportunity to react
to, refine and adopt the outcome categories presented. In addition,
grantmakers can consider some key directions for evaluation design that
include a broad range of methodologies, intensities, timeframes and
purposes.
As a companion to this guide, ORS has collected examples of measurement
tools that are applicable to advocacy and policy work. These are
presented in “A Handbook of Data Collection Tools: Companion
to a Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy.”
This handbook of data collection tools is intended to serve as a
companion to “A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy.” Organizational
Research Services (ORS) developed this guide on behalf
of the Annie E. Casey Foundation to support efforts to
develop and implement an evaluation of advocacy and
policy work. The companion handbook is dedicated to providing examples
of practical tools and processes for collecting useful information
from policy and advocacy efforts. It is available in both document
form and as an online resource. Please see AECF.ORG, ORGANIZATIONALRESEARCH.COM and INNONET.ORG.
Organizational Research Services, as parent company to The Evaluation
Forum (TEF), has prepared two manuals that are available for purchase
through TEF's website. To order these publications and to find out more
information about The Evaluation Forum and its offerings, click here.
“How
to Manage and Analyze Data for Outcome-based Evaluation” (excerpt 2,031 kb)
This handbook is an introduction to the process of preparing
and analyzing data for Outcome-based evaluation. It covers a range of
topics to help you effectively collect and manage outcome data, and
use common software packages such as Microsoft Access and Microsoft
Excel to analyze your data. The handbook further provides some background
material on the computation and interpretation of basic statistical
measures, and on how to summarize, interpret and present the results
of outcome evaluations.
“Outcomes for Success!” manual (excerpt 1,691kb)
“Outcomes for Success!” can be used as a stand-alone “travel
guide” to help agencies and organizations on their outcomes journey.
It also can be used as part of a training course provided
by outcome measurement consultants. It is written for
program staff, funders, policy makers and others who
wish to learn about outcome planning and evaluation in
an easy-to-digest, jargon-free format.
In addition, ORS has a number of publications that are
customized. There are two examples below. Please refer
to our Customized
Manuals / Guides >> Featured Projects section of this
website to peruse other examples as well.
Annie E. Casey Foundation Manuals (the following manuals were commissioned
for AECF for the Making Connections initiative): “Influence and Leverage” manual (925 kb)
“A Practical Guide to Documenting Influence and Leverage in Making Connections
Communities” offers practical guidance to capturing and documenting influences
and leverage in a Making Connections community. It provides clarification,
concrete examples and suggested approaches for documentation of these often
elusive concepts.
The guide is intended to be versatile to meet a wide
variety of specific audiences and needs.
“Theory of Change” manual (820
kb)
“Theory of Change: A Practical Tool for Action, Results and Learning” prepared
for the Annie E. Casey Foundation
This guide describes an approach and practical strategies
for engaging in theory of change work with community partners.
It offers instructions in using specific techniques or “so that” chains
and outcome maps in the development of a theory of change.
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