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Session Title: Improving Organizational Capacity Improve Client Outcomes?: A Review of Three Initiatives of The Colorado Trust
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Panel Session 808 to be held in Pacific D on Saturday, Nov 5, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
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Sponsored by the Non-profit and Foundations Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Chris Armijo, The Colorado Trust, chris@coloradotrust.org
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| Abstract:
In 2005, The Colorado Trust invested $26.1 million in three initiatives -Equality in Health, Healthy Aging Initiative and Partnerships for Health Initiative. Each initiative had a distinct emphasis, but all three hypothesized that improving organizational capacity would impact the number of services provided and/or demonstrate improvements in client health outcomes. The underlying assumption being that high capacity organizations would ultimately yield measurable improvement in specific health indicators. This panel, which includes program and evaluation staff from the foundation and the external evaluation firms, will discuss adaptations of the initiatives over time, evaluation methods and findings, assumptions on capacity building, grantee outcomes and evaluation capacity of grantee organizations. In particular, the presenters will address the following questions: Who's capacity are we building and measuring? What conditions should be present for successful capacity building? What is the link between capacity building and client outcomes, and how to address both through an evaluation?
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A Reflection on Capacity Building Grantmaking and Evaluation: Using our Successes and Lessons Learning on Strategies to Improve Client Outcomes
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| Chris Armijo, The Colorado Trust, chris@coloradotrust.org
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The Colorado Trust invested significant resources in three grantmaking strategies to understand the correlation between capacity building and client outcomes. There were a number of lessons learned about clarity of the strategy from the perspectives of the foundation and the grantees, ability of grantees to measure outcomes, challenges in grantees participation in the initiative evaluation, and the appropriate timeline to include evaluators in the design of an initiative strategy. In addition to the aforementioned lessons, these three initiatives had a number of design and evaluation learnings pertaining to the hypothesis that that improving capacity leads to better outcomes. The presenter will discuss the successes and lessons learned as well as share thoughts on capacity building grantmaking for the future.
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Finding the Link Between Community Collaboration and Improving the Health of Communities: A Retrospective View of the Partnerships for Health Initiative Evaluation
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| Phillip Chung, Colorado Trust, phillip@coloradotrust.org
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Due to a largely fragmented and underfunded public health system in Colorado, the Partnerships for Health Initiative was developed to improve agency collaboration that would result in better health outcomes in communities. The Colorado Trust funded 13 organizations statewide ranging from hospitals, safety net clinics, substance abuse coalitions to mental health collaboratives. The panelist will discuss the evaluation framework for the initiative, changes to the evaluation, and the case study approach to the evaluation. Additionally, key findings will be shared as well as measurement challenges in linking community efforts to the health of the community.
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Are Culturally Competent Organizations Better Equipped to Reduce Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities?: Issues of Measurement and Metrics from the Equality in Health Initiative
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| Kien Lee, Community Science, kien@communityscience.com
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| LaKeesha Woods, Community Science, lwoods@communityscience.com
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In 2005, The Colorado Trust funded a $13.1 million initiative to reduce racial/ethnic health disparities. The grant strategy sought to answer three key evaluation questions: "Does the cultural competency of the grantees change over time? If so, how does this change influence the grantees' health disparities interventions and their logic model outcomes? And, what factors and conditions should be in place in order for an organization to bring about positive changes in cultural competency?" Results of the evaluation will be discussed with an emphasis on measuring organizational cultural competency, linking to program-level outcomes and methodological challenges in collecting data.
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Are Higher Capacity Organizations Better Equipped to Deliver Senior Services with Better Outcomes?: An Evaluation Case Study from the Healthy Aging Initiative
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| Erin Caldwell, National Research Center Inc, erin@n-r-c.com
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Due to the large and growing aging population in Colorado, The Colorado Trust invested in 20 senior serving organizations throughout the state. Each organization was awarded a four year grant to fund new or existing senior services and building their organizational capacity. The primary evaluation question was "does providing technical assistance to build the capacity of grantee organizations help to improve their ability to serve seniors?" The presenter will discuss the methods of measuring improvements to senior services, organizational capacity and challenges of initiative and program level evaluation. Additionally, results will be shared on the links between organizational capacity building and senior services.
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