Oct 01, 2020

ABT Associates, Inc.;

As the economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in 2020, nonprofit institutions have stepped up to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and health care for those in need. Afinancially strong nonprofit organization that can provide this support through economic downturns does not happen by itself, however. It takes planning, investment, skill and hard work. As funders, policymakers, and practitioners consider how to foster financially strong nonprofit institutions that can help with the current and future crises, it is worth reflecting on the effectiveness of past efforts to support the growth of nonprofit institutions.In the early 2000s, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur) launched one such effort. MacArthur sought to support the growth and sustainability of a group of nonprofit affordable housing developers through program-related investments (PRIs) that provided long-term flexible equity-like capital. This report summarizes the results of Abt Associates' evaluation of this initiative. Among other conclusions, Abt found that these investments played an important role in helping the developers survive and even thrive during the last major economic upheaval, the Great Recession. The flexible financing provided by the PRIs helped the nonprofit developers achieve larger scale, improve financial and staff capacity, and react creatively to changes in economic and social conditions.

Jul 01, 2020

ABT Associates, Inc.;

As the economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in 2020, nonprofit institutions have stepped up to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and health care for those in need. A financially strong nonprofit organization that can provide this support through economic downturns does not happen by itself, however. It takes planning, investment, skill and hard work. As funders, policymakers, and practitioners consider how to foster financially strong nonprofit institutions that can help with the current and future crises, it is worth reflecting on the effectiveness of past efforts to support the growth of nonprofit institutions.In the early 2000s, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur) launched an effort to support the growth and sustainability of a group of nonprofit affordable housing developers through program-related investments (PRIs) that provided long-term flexible equity-like capital. This brief summarizes the results of Abt Associates' evaluation of this initiative. Among other findings, Abt found that these investments played an important role in helping the developers survive and even thrive during the last major economic upheaval, the Great Recession. The flexible financing provided by the PRIs helped the nonprofit developers achieve larger scale, improve financial and staff capacity, and react creatively to changes in economic and social conditions.

Feb 28, 2020

EnCompass LLC;

Since 2015, the MacArthur Foundation's On Nigeria strategy has sought to reduce corruption by supporting Nigerian-led efforts that strengthen accountability, transparency, and participation. Its theory of change builds on Jonathan Fox's "sandwich theory," which leverages the interplay between a push from below, by which citizens demand change ("voice"), and a squeeze from above to encourage public and private institutions to develop and enforce laws and regulations ("teeth").As of January 2020, the On Nigeria strategy has made 138 grants (totaling $66.8 million) that are a proving ground to develop and test a range of tactics and entry points for addressing corruption. Corruption is complex and ever-evolving, and progress toward the goal of reducing it will most certainly not be linear nor simple. Thus, On Nigeria reflects a multilayered strategy, comprising five areas of targeted programming, or modules—the Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) Program, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Intervention Fund, Electricity Distribution, Criminal Justice, and Media and Journalism; and three cross-cutting areas—behavior and social norm change, civil society pressure for government accountability, and election-related efforts.The goal of this paper is to provide the latest information from the ongoing evaluation of On Nigeria, facilitate learning, and serve as one input to determine the next stage of programming. The evidence presented explores the strategy's progress to date, the validity of its theory of change, and status of windows of opportunity in the strategy's landscape.

Feb 18, 2020

Ble Solutions; ORS Impact; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Madison Initiative;

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation's Madison Initiative (MI) seeks to strengthen U.S. democracy and its institutions in a time of political polarization. The goal is to help create the conditions in Congress in which its Members can deliberate, negotiate, and compromise in ways that work for most Americans. Launched in 2014, this nonpartisan initiative supports nonprofit organizations across the ideological spectrum—academic researchers, advocacy groups, think tanks, and civic leadership organizations—that seek to understand and improve the political system so that elected representatives are better equipped to solve society's greatest problems and in turn, earn public trust and support. The Hewlett Foundation's board authorized MI to make $15-20 million in grants per year from 2014 to 2021, for a total commitment of $150 million.

Feb 01, 2020

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.;

Throughout its engagements in India, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has focusedon building in-country capacity that supports long-lasting change and betters the health and well-beingof those in the country. As the Foundation's Population and Reproductive Health (PRH) engagementscame to a close in 2019, it considered how to leave the field and stakeholders in India poised to take onthe ongoing task of improving maternal health—a key to achieving social, financial, and physical wellbeing. Recognizing quality as the linchpin for making more progress on maternal health, the MacArthurFoundation focused its final PRH grants on improving maternal health quality of care (MHQoC) in India.This final round of funding in India supported long-standing work designed to transition the country tothe next phase and launch promising innovations. Using information collected from the final phase ofthe MHQoC strategy (April 2018 through July 2019), this report represents the culminating review of thestrategy, assesses its contributions to the quality of maternal health care, and considers the implicationsfor the future of the field. Results are presented by each of MHQoC strategy's three core substrategies:supply, demand, and advocacy.

Dec 13, 2019

Campaign Zero; Police Scorecard;

Campaign Zero evaluated the policing practices of San Diego Police Department (SDPD) and San Diego Sheriff's Department (SDSD).Our results show both departments to be engaged in a pattern of discriminatory policing. Both departments stopped black people at a rate more than 2x higher than white people and were more likely to search, arrest, and use force against black people during a stop. Both departments not only use force more often but also use more severe forms of force against black people than other groups, even after controlling for arrest rates and alleged level of resistance.We also found evidence of anti-Latinx bias, anti-LGBT bias and bias against people with disabilities in both departments' search practices.

Oct 21, 2019

Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York;

After 1990, US and European foundations and government agencies invested in a series of Partnerships and Trusts to support civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltics, the Balkans and the Black Sea regions. Analyzing the long-term impact of these investments is crucial, especially as many politicians across these regions increase their anti-civil society rhetoric. Three long-time US foundation staff look back at the legacy and impact of this funding and derive a series of lessons for practitioners seeking to understand how best to sustain civil societies for the long term.

Aug 01, 2019

Learning for Action; The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation;

Since 2016, the Schusterman Family Foundation has engaged Learning for Action (LFA) as the evaluation and learning partner for the Schusterman Fellowship. As part of that work, LFA designed a theory of change (see following slide) and conducted several standalone evaluations of the Fellowship program and the Senior Fellows program. 2019 marks the third year of data available on the Fellowship and the second year of data on the Senior Fellows program. For the first time, these data are reported together so the Schusterman Foundation can examine trends and begin to explore some early longitudinal results from the Fellowship programming. This report thus summarizes the findings of the impact of the first three years of the Fellowship on Fellows while also providing an exploration of the longer-term impacts of the Fellowship and Senior Fellows programming.

Jul 30, 2019

Fund for Shared Insight; ORS Impact;

Past evaluations of Shared Insight's Listen4Good grantees have reported that through L4G they increased their technical ability to perform high-quality feedback loops, gained insights that informed data-driven changes to programming and internal operations, and improved both their programs' effectiveness and their overall ability to serve clients. Evaluations have also found that L4G helped foster a culture of openness and listening in participating organizations and advanced their equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts.Until now, however, these studies have examined L4G participants only during their grant periods. In this report, ORS Impact takes on a central learning question for the sustainability of Shared Insight's feedback work: To what extent do grantees continue collecting high-quality perceptual feedback from clients after the L4G grant ends?Here, ORS looks at 46 nonprofits that were the first to receive L4G grants in 2016, conducting interviews with 35 of them about a year after their grant ended.

Jul 30, 2019

W.K. Kellogg Foundation;

This report shows how equity-based family engagement helps parents and caretakers in underserved communities become effective advocates and culture-bearers in schools, which boosts educational quality and relevance.

Jul 30, 2019

Fund for Shared Insight;

In prior reports, ORS Impact, Fund for Shared Insight's learning and evaluation partner, has analyzed the feedback initiative Listen4Good from the perspective of participating nonprofits. In this report, ORS examines what nonprofit clients, the people taking the L4G surveys, think about the experience of providing feedback and what impact it has.To explore this, ORS conducted focus groups with 83 clients at seven L4G-participating organizations; interviewed staff from those same groups; and reviewed L4G-survey data to better understand the organizations' feedback practices and triangulate answers with perceptions clients shared in the focus groups.

Jul 29, 2019

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University; MDRC;

Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support colleges that seek to incorporate technology into their advising and student services. In iPASS, such technology is intended to increase advising's emphasis on a student's entire college experience, enabling advisers to more easily (1) intervene when students show early warning signs of academic and nonacademic challenges, (2) regularly follow up as students progress through college, (3) refer students to tutoring and other support services when needed, and (4) provide personalized guidance that reflects students' unique needs.To study how technology can support advising redesign, MDRC and the Community College Research Center partnered with three institutions already implementing iPASS: California State University, Fresno; Montgomery County Community College; and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The three institutions increased the emphasis on providing timely support, boosted their use of advising technologies, and used administrative and communication strategies to increase student contact with advisers. The enhancements at all three institutions are being evaluated using a randomized controlled trial research design.This report shows that the enhancements generally produced only a modestly different experience for students in the program group compared with students in the control group, although at one college, the enhancements did substantially increase the number of students who had contact with an adviser. Consequently, it is not surprising that the enhancements have so far had no discernible positive effects on students' academic performance. The findings also highlight the potential for unintended consequences. Before the study, each of the institutions had required that certain groups of students see an adviser before registering for classes in the next semester. Each institution expanded this preregistration requirement to include all students in the study's program groups, but at one institution, the requirement appears to have contributed to a small reduction in earned credits.