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Session Title: Real-life Lessons Learned in Building Capacity for Advocacy and Policy Evaluation
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Panel Session 529 to be held in Royale Conference Foyer on Friday, November 9, 9:25 AM to 10:10 AM
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Sponsored by the Advocacy and Policy Change TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Jane Reisman,
Organizational Research Services,
jreisman@organizationalresearch.com
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| Abstract:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is developing their understanding of how to best approach advocacy and policy evaluation work in "real time" and with "realistic resources." This panel will share lessons learned in the process of developing advocacy and policy change outcomes and measurement strategies in a variety of KIDS COUNT advocacy settings. KIDS COUNT-- a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation-is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the U.S. Four grantees volunteered to develop an evaluation strategy for a particular advocacy campaign promoted in their organization-Children Now (CA), Family Connection Partnership (GA), Michigan League of Human Services, and Action for Children North Carolina. This panel will share lessons learned about numerous topics including: outcome selection, direction for evaluation, selection of data collection tools, resource requirements, how to use evaluation to strengthen strategic directions, implementation and, working with partnerships.
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Evaluating Policy Advocacy Grant making: One Foundation's Call to Action
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| Thomas Kelly,
Annie E Casey Foundation,
tkelly@aecf.org
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The Annie E. Casey Foundation dedicates its grant making to the improvement of outcomes and life chances for the most vulnerable children in the US. In order to accomplish this, we believe that we need to address the roots of social problems and inequity through public policy advocacy at local, state, and national levels. This has included both state-level policy advocacy through the KIDSCOUNT network, as well as empowering small community service organizations to engage in relevant policy advocacy at the local level. However, advocacy grants are not easily monitored and assessed using traditional program evaluation techniques. The importance of advocacy grant making has forced Casey to begin to identify relevant evaluation frameworks that help grantees assess their progress and effectiveness and help the foundation evaluate our overall policy strategy. This has also required us to first get clearer about our intent, including evaluation goals, expectations, methodologies, audiences, and uses.
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What Do Advocacy and Policy Organizations Need in Order to Successfully Carry Out Evaluation?
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| Cory Anderson,
Annie E Casey Foundation,
canderson@aecf.org
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| Don Crary,
Annie E Casey Foundation,
dcrary@aecf.org
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As an integral part of the public policy formation process, advocacy organizations work at the whim of frequent changes in policy priorities and have in many cases developed highly successful organizations able to quickly adapt to those chances and capitalize on new opportunities. Measuring their work, within those ever changing contexts is difficult and requires a clear sense of the most effective strategies, different ways to document the use and success of those strategies and perhaps most importantly, more than one way to measure success. Over the past several years, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been working with the KIDS COUNT Network of grantees to address these issues in a way that will provide support to both the KIDS COUNT Network and to the field of policy advocacy in general. This section will address: What challenges and successes have State KIDS COUNT grantees experienced?
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How to Guide Advocacy and Policy Evaluation Organizations in Successful Evaluations: Lessons Learned From KIDS COUNT Grantees
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| Jane Reisman,
Organizational Research Services,
jreisman@organizationalresearch.com
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| Anne Gienapp,
Organizational Research Services,
agienapp@organizationalresearch.com
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| Corey Newhouse,
Children Now,
cnewhouse@childrennow.org
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| Julie Sharpe,
Family Connection Partnership,
jksharpe@friendlycity.net
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This presentation shares lessons gained from applying practical guidance presented in A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy. This Guide offers approaches to classifying outcomes, developing a theory of change, selecting a course for evaluation and practical selection of evaluation tools. Organizational Research Services is piloting the content of this Guide with four KIDS COUNT grantees. This pilot will be the basis for distilling specific lessons about the types of practical lessons learned about what works and what is needed for designing and carrying out evaluation in real time and with realistic resources.
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