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Session Title: Turning the Tables: Assessing Grantmakers' Advocacy Capacity
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Panel Session 578 to be held in Panzacola Section F1 on Friday, Nov 13, 3:35 PM to 4:20 PM
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Sponsored by the Advocacy and Policy Change TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Astrid Hendricks, The California Endowment, ahendricks@calendow.org
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| Discussant(s):
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| Barbara Masters, The California Endowment, bmasters@calendow.org
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| Abstract:
Since its beginning, the advocacy evaluation field has recognized the critical importance that advocacy capacity, the knowledge, skills, and systems an organization needs to implement and sustain effective advocacy work, plays in policy change efforts. Because it plays such an important role, evaluators have found it valuable to assess advocates' strengths and skills at the beginning of a campaign, use that information to suggest ways of strengthening specific capacity areas, and then track improvements over time.
In this session, the presenters -- an advocate and an evaluator, and the discussant -- a grantmaker -- will discuss another side of the capacity equation, showing that it also is important for grantmakers to think about and assess their own advocacy capacity, as their grantmaking practices can profoundly affect the success of their grantees' work. Speakers will introduce specific ideas about the kinds of advocacy knowledge and skills grantmakers need to conduct successful advocacy grantmaking.
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The Advocate's Perspective: The Capacities That Grantmakers Need
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| Susan Hoechstetter, Alliance for Justice, shoech@afj.org
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To support advocacy capacity assessment, the Alliance for Justice, with assistance from Mosaica and in partnership with The George Gund Foundation, developed an "Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool" that helps advocates and their funders assess their ability to sustain effective advocacy efforts, develop a plan for building advocacy capacity, and determine appropriate advocacy plans based on the organization's advocacy resources. The tool is available both online and in print, and has been used in numerous advocacy evaluations. Drawing on this work, the Alliance for Justice is now also thinking about the kinds of capacities grantmakers need to be effective. This presentation will describe how funding practices affect advocates, and what grantmakers need to know and do to ensure their grantmaking strategies and their advocacy grantees can be as effective as possible.
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The Evaluator's Perspective: Helping Grantmakers Choose the Right Strategies
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| Julia Coffman, Harvard Family Research Project, jcoffman@evaluationexchange.org
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A critical aspect of grantmakers' advocacy capacity is ensuring that funders understand how to choose appropriate grantmaking strategies. Such decisions require a clear assessment of grantmakers' public policy goals and related outcomes, the audiences they are trying to move, how long they are willing to invest in achieving their goals, the amount of "risk" they are willing to assume, and the extent to which advocacy strategies fit with a foundation's history and mission. This presentation will offer a specific framework, developed for and tested by the James Irvine Foundation, that helps foundations think about their advocacy and public policy grantmaking options. The framework literally maps possible advocacy and policy change activities according to where they fall on two strategic dimensions, the audience targeted and the outcomes desired.
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