Publications

What does it really mean to treat evaluation study participants fairly, equitably and with the utmost respect? For foundation staff without deep research backgrounds, it is vital to understand whether evaluators are taking appropriate steps to protect the participants in their work. Does every study require an Institutional Review Board (IRB) process? When is the process not necessary? With generous support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, BTW has developed Resource Documents and an accompanying Training Toolkit for philanthropic organizations to address these issues. Relevant for foundation staff responsible for evaluation and research studies, these go-to resources provide easy-to-follow decision trees, guidelines and interactive training activities for spotting potential issues to consider in order to ensure ethically sound evaluations.

Materials

Ensuring the Rights of Study Participants: Resource Documents for Philanthropic Organizations

Ensuring the Rights of Study Participants: Training Toolkit for Philanthropic Organizations

Ensuring the Rights of Study Participants: PowerPoint Presentation

Ensuring the Rights of Study Participants: Resource Documents and Training Toolkit for Philanthropic Organizations by BTW informing change is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://btw.informingchange.com/about/contact-us.

As part of the evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s Networking for Community Health (NCH) program, BTW is examining how community clinics strengthen their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners to promote community health.

This brief focuses on a sub-set of NCH projects that are engaging youth to promote community health. The report describes how clinics can integrate youth into community health improvement efforts and profiles three projects to illustrate different of ways to engage youth. The brief also includes lessons learned from the projects, which may be of interest to others who support, design or implement similar projects.

What can a community college do to ensure that its students complete their degrees and move forward into productive and fulfilling careers? Across the nation, policymakers, educators, students and their families are concerned about the low percentage of enrolled community college students who persevere to complete either a two-year or a four-year college degree. Because community colleges have open access (i.e., all students are eligible to attend regardless of their academic achievement), developmental education is a large component of community college education nationwide. This study uses focus groups, interviews and supplementary data to explore the extent to which selected colleges in Florida exhibit characteristics of developmental education success and how statewide policies may contribute to strong developmental education performance in relation to these characteristics. The first part of this report is a brief on Florida’s developmental education policies, as seen from the perspective of state administrators, college leaders and college staff. The second part is a set of case studies describing the practices of three community colleges in Florida that were particularly successful in serving students who needed developmental math, compared to other colleges in the state.

The Low Income Investment Fund’s ABCD Initiative supports the development of quality child care facilities in California. In this report, BTW took an in-depth look at one of the initiative’s strategies—Constructing Connections. Through this strategy, LIIF supported local collaborative teams consisting of child care operators, developers, civic leaders, small business leaders and other stakeholders in 11 California counties. These collaborative teams worked together to identify and eliminate local and regional barriers to child care facilities development, streamline the development process and provide support to new child care construction projects. This executive summary summarizes the key findings and implications from the evaluation, including the importance of having an ongoing connective community resource to support long-term systems change work

The After-school and Summer Enrichment Subprogram of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation helps build sustainable programmatic and financial support for California’s out-of-school programs. Having supported the Subprogram since 2005, the Foundation engaged BTW to evaluate the impact of its contributions.

BTW undertook a multi-year evaluation. Our Phase I study determined that the Foundation’s efforts have helped build critical infrastructure for the field. These and future findings by BTW (Phase II will be released in 2011) will help the field assess its accomplishments in providing technical assistance, workforce development and leadership to summer enrichment and after-school programs.

The ABCD Story outlines the purpose, components and intended impacts of the ABCD Initiative.

This in-depth case study illustrates how Riverside County is implementing the local capacity building work of the ABCD Initiative.

This in-depth case study illustrates how Merced County is implementing th local capacity building work of the ABCD initiative.

The purpose of the Low Income Investment Fund’s ABCD Initiative is to create a sustainable system for financing and developing California childcare facilities, and to support quality childcare spaces statewide. BTW is in its fourth year of an evaluation designed to identify how the Initiative’s interwoven strategies have affected outcomes.

Building Knowledge & Systems for Lasting Change: A Third Year Evaluation of the ABCD Initiative Executive Summary summarizes the key findings and implications from the third year of this evaluation.

The After-school and Summer Enrichment Subprogram of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation helps build sustainable programmatic and financial support for California’s out-of-school programs. Having supported the Subprogram since 2005, the Foundation engaged BTW to evaluate the impact of its contributions.

BTW undertook a multi-year evaluation. Our Phase I study determined that the Foundation’s efforts have helped build critical infrastructure for the field. These and future findings by BTW (Phase II will be released in 2011) will help the field assess its accomplishments in providing technical assistance, workforce development and leadership to summer enrichment and after-school programs.

More and more funders are adding “green grants” to their grantmaking programs as a way to encourage their grantees to undertake “green” practices and be more responsible stewards of Earth’s resources.

This brief, published in March 2009, describes the experience and lessons learned by one funder, Community Clinics Initiative (CCI). CCI’s initial half-million-dollar “green” grants program provided $25,000 grants to 20 community clinics to help them renovate or operate environmentally sustainable health-care facilities.

The article describes how grantees reduced their energy and water consumption, reduced environmental hazards in their buildings and engaged staff in implementing environmentally healthy operational practices. It includes 10 Lessons Learned through the program, a list of “Key Factors that Help Nonprofits Go Green” and short profiles of two grantees’ green projects.

This is important reading for funders and lenders who want to encourage environmentally sustainable practices, not only in clinics and health-care organizations, but in any nonprofit organization.

As part of its efforts in building the field of Jewish service-learning, Repair the World commissioned BTW to conduct an exploratory study on the impact of short-term immersive Jewish service-learning (IJSL) on the organizations and communities that host these groups.

The study included interviews with representatives of host community CBO/NGOs involved in IJSL projects in the US, Israel, Nicaragua, Ghana and Ukraine as well as an in-depth review of recent relevant research and writing about best practices in secular and faith-based service learning. BTW found that when short-term IJSL projects are well planned and executed, negative impacts are anticipated, and potential problems are addressed proactively, then positive impacts for host communities predominate.

In the fall of 2007, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned BTW to assess the landscape of Jewish Service Learning.

BTW examined the current capacity among Jewish Service Learning practitioners and the support required to expand that capacity. We also looked at the relevance of secular national service and other faith-based service traditions in defining the potential and development of Jewish Service Learning.

This report summarizes that research and offers a suggested action plan for growth based on our findings.

A funders collaborative in Houston, led by the Rockwell Fund, Inc., hired BTW to assist them with planning and evaluating a new initiative to build the capacity of Zip Code Assistance Ministries (ZCAMs) in the region.

ZCAMs are faith-based nonprofits providing emergency social and human services. This initiative, called the ZCAM Organizational Development Program, was modeled on OCGI, a project that BTW evaluated for three Bay Area funders several years ago.

Part of BTW’s work with the Houston initiative was to develop and facilitate an annual reflection and learning session for funders, ZCAM executives and key program partners. In preparation for the reflection session in September 2006, BTW put together a paper on the formation of social capital.

This paper explored how social-capital formation relates to building organizational capacity, creating a culture of collaboration and shared learning among ZCAM leaders.

This Evaluation Capacity Diagnostic Tool is designed to help organizations assess their readiness to take on many types of evaluation activities. It captures information on organizational context and the evaluation experience of staff and can be used in various ways. For example, the tool can pinpoint particularly strong areas of capacity as well as areas for improvement, and can also calibrate changes over time in an organization’s evaluation capacity. In addition, this diagnostic can encourage staff to brainstorm about how their organization can enhance evaluation capacity by building on existing evaluation experience and skills. Finally, the tool can serve as a precursor to evaluation activities with an external evaluation consultant.

Evaluation Capacity Diagnostic Tool by BTW informingchange is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://btw.informingchange.com/about/contact-us.

The After-school and Summer Enrichment Subprogram of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation helps build sustainable programmatic and financial support for California’s out-of-school programs. Having supported the Subprogram since 2005, the Foundation engaged BTW to evaluate the impact of its contributions.

BTW undertook a multi-year evaluation. Our Phase I study determined that the Foundation’s efforts have helped build critical infrastructure for the field. These and future findings by BTW (Phase II will be released in 2011) will help the field assess its accomplishments in providing technical assistance, workforce development and leadership to summer enrichment and after-school programs.

This evaluation brief outlines how the Community Clinics Intiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has been successful in effecting broad and deep social change within the community clinics field in California.

In addition to a description of CCI’s impacts and the evaluation design, the brief discusses critical factors that emerged for achieving deep, systems-level changes, and offers some summary reflections. These factors and reflections can inform the design and implementation of other philanthropic initiatives and grantmaking efforts.

BTW’s recent work has included exploring the issue of fiscal sponsorship; how the practice currently supports nonprofit sector work, how donors and funders perceive it, how it still holds untapped potential for public problem solving.

Fiscal sponsorship—as it exists and as it could be—has a place in the independent-sector toolbox for the 21st century, but current perceptions are limiting its application and effectiveness.

In this brief we suggest that fiscal sponsorship be considered within a larger question: How do we make the sector more effective at lower cost and with more effective collective action?

BTW prepared case studies to serve as learning tools for social change movement building in work with the Marguerite Casey Foundation. The Foundation supports community-based leadership and promoting grassroots activism.

BTW worked to evaluate and facilitate a cluster of eight grantee organizations:

1. Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy
2. Breakthrough Urban Ministries
3. Institute for Democratic Renewal/ Project Change
4. Interfaith Worker Justice
5. Labor/ Community Strategy Center
6. Los Angeles Metropolitan Churches
7. Radio Bilingue
8. South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations

Each case study revolves around the grantee organizations’ work on economic justice and community development issues. A sample case study is shared here; please contact BTW for other case studies

The Blue Shield of California Foundation is partnering with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to design and implement Clinic Leadership Institute (CLI). CLI is an 18-month leadership program designed to prepare the next generation of community clinic leaders for executive leadership positions in order to sustain a strong and vibrant community clinic system in California.

BTW informing change is conducting an ongoing evaluation of CLI. “The Pathway to Leadership: Lessons from Clinic Leadership Institute” highlights evaluation findings based on the experiences of the first two cohorts and offers key ways in which those in the community clinics field can support CLI participants and other emerging clinic leaders.

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) launched their Networking for Community Health (NCH) grantmaking program. The program was designed to support California community clinics in strengthening their working relationships with both traditional and non-traditional partners. Over the past three years, CCI has supported clinics’ projects that work on a wide variety of issues, including improving access to nutritious food, engaging youth and coordinating health services, among others.

This report examines the ways in which the NCH program has enhanced the capacity of clinics and their partners to improve community health. It describes the conceptual framework of the NCH program, presents evaluation findings to date and offers practical suggestions for other funders and communities interested in pursuing a similar approach to improve community health.

Social Web sites have rapidly grown into large, sophisticated networks that can span the globe.This brief provides a snapshot of one nonprofit online community—the Community Clinic Voice. The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) supports the Voice to aid health care safety net professionals in building stronger, healthier communities.

The brief explores the Voice model, including its structure, evolution, members and the benefits that they gain from utilizing the Voice. It also summarizes CCI’s approach to online community management and considerations for those who are interested or involved in developing or maintaining online communities as a tool to support the work of the nonprofit sector.

Community health workers, public health aides, promotores and peer educators are all terms used to describe the role of community health promoters. These workers are recruited from communities to apply their knowledge of the area and their personal connections with residents to promote the public’s health. The Community Clinics Initiative requested that BTW examine the role of community health promoters in their Networking for Community Health grantmaking program. This brief documents the role and effectiveness of community health promoters in the program.

In 2008, The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI)’s launched their new Networking for Community Health grantmaking program. The program provides California community clinics with two-year grants to strengthen networking efforts with other organizations to promote the health of the communities they serve. Grantees’ networks have addressed a variety of community health priorities, from exposure to toxins to access to healthy food and regular exercise to disaster planning.

At a mid-point during the inaugural cohort, BTW informing change created a “visual summary” that describes the program’s key findings and learnings in a visually appealing, easy-to-use and condensed format.

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of emerging leaders within the community clinics field in California. It looks at the degree to which their group of clinic staff are interested in and poised to become future CEOs, medical directors or other senior leaders in community clinics and consortia and what types of support they need to do so. It is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and important implications for preparing the next generation of clinic leaders.

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of Medical Directors within California’s community clinics field. It looks at Medical director’s career pathways and their current job satisfaction, the most significant rewards and challenges of their leadership position, the extent to which they share leadership with others and important sources of support and training. It is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and important implications for consideration by clinic leaders, their partners, funders and other community clinic stakeholders.

This report describes the findings and implications from an assessment of CEOs within California’s community clinics field. It looks at CEO’s perspectives on their current position, career path and aspirations, job challenges and rewards and the types of support that are most important for them to be successful in their work.

The report is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and key implications to stimulate discussion and action among clinic leaders, their nonprofit and for-profit partners, funders and other stakeholders in the community clinics field.

What kinds of actions taken now would ensure that community clinics have the leaders they need to meet the impending challenges of coming years? In 2008, two leading health care funders in California—the Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Community Clinics Initiative, a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment—engaged a team of consultants from BTW informing change and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services to assess the state of leadership in the community clinics field and answer this question.

Three separate studies were undertaken, and the results of all three are summarized in this publication. Community Clinic Leadership in California: State of the Field and Implications for the Future is a snapshot of the current leadership landscape and calls out important implications for consideration by clinic leaders, their funders and other community clinics stakeholders.

From 2003 thorough 2007, the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) invested more than $17 million in community health centers to undertake capital projects and enhance their fund-development capacity. BTW has worked with CCI over the past few years to evaluate the MCCG Program.

As the Program comes to an end, BTW has produced a brief report that provides grantmaking considerations for funders who are thinking about, or already involved in, capital funding programs for nonprofit organizations. The report, “Building for the Future,” also provides a short description of the MCCG grantmaking approach and key impacts that resulted from the program.

In 2008, BTW examined the ways in which the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has sought to develop and strengthen leadership in community clinics in California. Throughout the life of the Initiative, CCI has aimed to enhance the capacities of its grantees and strengthen the broader community clinics field in California.

In this brief, we use CCI’s leadership cultivation efforts to show the variety of ways in which leadership can be developed and strengthened within the nonprofit sector. Read about how leadership has been, and continues to be, cultivated within a broad social change initiative.

As part of our broader work with the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), BTW undertook an evaluation of the Managing Ambulatory Health Care (MAHC) training program, which is offered by the Harvard School of Public Health and was supported by CCI from 2003 to 2007.

The program provides an intensive “Management 101” for medical directors of community clinics and health centers. CCI supported the participation of approximately 160 medical directors representing most community clinics in California. This brief presents the key evaluation findings for the MAHC program.

This evaluation brief outlines how the Community Clinics Intiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has been successful in effecting broad and deep social change within the community-clinics field in California.

In addition to a description of CCI’s impacts and the evaluation design, the brief discusses critical factors that emerged for achieving deep, systems-level changes, and offers some summary reflections. These factors and reflections can inform the design and implementation of other philanthropic initiatives and grantmaking efforts.

The purpose of the Women’s Foundation of California Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights Program is to equip organizations, leaders and advocates to protect and strengthen reproductive rights and access to care for women and girls from low-income communities of color in California. The Program incorporates strategic grantmaking, policy advocacy, capacity building and technical assistance.

This evaluation report captures information about the Program’s efforts from 2001 to 2007. It includes key accomplishments, strengths, opportunities for improvement and programmatic implications that can increase overall effectiveness and impact.

The Kaiser Permanente Community Clinic Partnership (the Partnership) is a collaboration of Kaiser Permanente (KP) in California and the state’s system of community clinics. KP contracted with BTW informing change to examine the Partnership experience within KP,  the clinic networks and individual clinics. The evaluation focuses on the Partnership’s first phase of support between 2002 and 2005, and examines the accomplishments of the Partnership, how the Partnership achieved these accomplishments and the central lessons learned.

FCAA wanted to better understand and further philanthropic response to HIV/AIDS well into the 21st century. It initiated a study called the Funder Remobilization Project (FRP) to more deeply research HIV/AIDS funders.

BTW conducted in-depth interviews with 35 of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS funders to answer several primary research questions.

What does it take to become an effective coach in the nonprofit sector? How can coaches assess leaders’ readiness for coaching? How can coaches ensure a successful engagement? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Coaches addresses in this guide that that highlights the findings from the Coaching and Philanthropy Project’s unprecedented deep dive into learning about the use of coaching in the nonprofit sector. The project was formed by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, Leadership that Works, and BTW informing change to assess and advance coaching as a strategy for building effective nonprofit organizations.

How does coaching differ from other types of nonprofit supports? Why should grantmakers support coaching? When and how should coaching be used? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Grantmakers addresses in this guide that highlights the findings from the Coaching and Philanthropy Project’s unprecedented deep dive into learning about the use of coaching in the nonprofit sector. The project was formed by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, Leadership that Works, and BTW informing change to assess and advance coaching as a strategy for building effective nonprofit organizations.

What is coaching? How can coaching contribute to my development as a nonprofit leader? What kind of coaching is right for me and my organization? How much is coaching? These are just a few of the questions that Coaching and Philanthropy: An Action Guide for Nonprofits addresses in this guide that highlights the findings from the Coaching and Philanthropy Project’s unprecedented deep dive into learning about the use of coaching in the nonprofit sector. The project was formed by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, Leadership that Works, and BTW informing change to assess and advance coaching as a strategy for building effective nonprofit organizations.

In 2009, the Pipeline Project, the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund’s Flexible Leadership Investments created the 21^st Century Fellows Program to retain and advance managers of color working at LGBT human rights and advocacy organizations. The year-long leadership program aims to build fellows’ leadership skills through a Rockwood Leadership Institute curriculum, create lasting peer networks, facilitate fellows’ advancement into executive positions and support their work to build stronger organizations. The program is supported by the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Arcus Foundation and the Gill Foundation.

BTW collaborated with program staff to review, synthesize and analyze information collected during the Program’s inaugural year. This report describes the leadership program’s model, identifies initial key findings and provides recommendations to inform the program’s evolution in the future.

In 2008, The Blue Shield of California Foundation partnered with the Center for the Health Professions at the University of California, San Francisco to address leadership needs in the community clinics field. They launched the Clinic Leadership Institute (CLI), an 18-month leadership program designed to prepare next generation leaders to move into executive leadership positions. Over the past two years, BTW has conducted an ongoing evaluation of CLI and recently completed this brief describing the CLI program as well as key findings from the inaugural cohort of the program. This brief also provides considerations for individuals and organizations that support next generation leaders.

The Center for Leadership Innovation (TCLI), formerly known as the Development Training Institute, embarked on a pilot project to offer two types of coaching to emerging leaders of color who had completed a leadership training. TCLI alumni were given the opportunity to participate in one-on-one coaching, peer group coaching, or a combination of both. BTW informing change conducted an exploratory evaluation of this pilot project to identify the benefits of these different coaching models in and of themselves and as a complement to the leadership training. Both types of coaching assisted participants in strengthening their leadership, with each type having particular strengths.

This report offers lessons learned from the James Irvine Foundation’s Fund for Leadership Advancement Initiative. This summary is based on the full evaluation report, “Strengthening Nonprofit Leaders to Enhance Organizational Capacity.”

LeaderSpring’s Executive Coaching Project (ECP) complements their existing two-year leadership program for nonprofit executives who are predominantly leaders of color and/or work in communities of color. BTW informing change conducted an evaluation of the ECP and found that, overall, the Executive Coaching Project is a unique and effective model for supporting nonprofit leaders as they engage in the LeaderSpring fellowship program. The report describes LeaderSpring’s ECP model and coaching process, explores key findings and offers program reflections and implications for those who would like to support similar types of efforts.

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of emerging leaders within the community clinics field in California. It looks at the degree to which their group of clinic staff are interested in and poised to become future CEOs, medical directors or other senior leaders in community clinics and consortia and what types of support they need to do so. It is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and important implications for preparing the next generation of clinic leaders.

This report describes the findings and implications from a study of Medical Directors within California’s community clinics field. It looks at Medical director’s career pathways and their current job satisfaction, the most significant rewards and challenges of their leadership position, the extent to which they share leadership with others and important sources of support and training. It is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and important implications for consideration by clinic leaders, their partners, funders and other community clinic stakeholders.

This report describes the findings and implications from an assessment of CEOs within California’s community clinics field. It looks at CEO’s perspectives on their current position, career path and aspirations, job challenges and rewards and the types of support that are most important for them to be successful in their work.

The report is part of a larger compendium of studies that provide a snapshot of clinic leadership within the state and key implications to stimulate discussion and action among clinic leaders, their nonprofit and for-profit partners, funders and other stakeholders in the community clinics field.

What kinds of actions taken now would ensure that community clinics have the leaders they need to meet the impending challenges of coming years? In 2008, two leading health care funders in California—the Blue Shield of California Foundation and the Community Clinics Initiative, a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment—engaged a team of consultants from BTW informing change and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services to assess the state of leadership in the community clinics field and answer this question.

Three separate studies were undertaken, and the results of all three are summarized in this publication. Community Clinic Leadership in California: State of the Field and Implications for the Future is a snapshot of the current leadership landscape and calls out important implications for consideration by clinic leaders, their funders and other community clinics stakeholders.

In 2008, BTW examined the ways in which the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment, has sought to develop and strengthen leadership in community clinics in California. Throughout the life of the Initiative, CCI has aimed to enhance the capacities of its grantees and strengthen the broader community clinics field in California.

In this brief, we use CCI’s leadership cultivation efforts to show the variety of ways in which leadership can be developed and strengthened within the nonprofit sector. Read about how leadership has been, and continues to be, cultivated within a broad social change initiative.

In 2005, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation initiated the Coaching and Philanthropy Project to assess the use of coaching within the nonprofit sector. Coaching is a powerful strategy for cultivating strong leadership and building effective organizations, and the Foundation sought to expand the use of coaching among nonprofits.

BTW’s research identified substantial rewards for nonprofits prepared to use coaching as a tool for growth. These included

• The philanthropic sector’s support of coaching for nonprofit grantees
• The demand for coaching among nonprofits
• The readiness of the coaching profession to provide services to nonprofits
• The added value of coaching to enhance the work of the nonprofit sector

BTW’s findings and report provide a framework for strategic advancement of coaching as a nonprofit leadership and organizational development tool.

In 2009, the Pipeline Project, the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund’s Flexible Leadership Investments created the 21^st Century Fellows Program to retain and advance managers of color working at LGBT human rights and advocacy organizations. The year-long leadership program aims to build fellows’ leadership skills through a Rockwood Leadership Institute curriculum, create lasting peer networks, facilitate fellows’ advancement into executive positions and support their work to build stronger organizations. The program is supported by the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Arcus Foundation and the Gill Foundation.

BTW collaborated with program staff to review, synthesize and analyze information collected during the Program’s inaugural year. This report describes the leadership program’s model, identifies initial key findings and provides recommendations to inform the program’s evolution in the future.

The Respect for All Project (RFAP), a program of Women’s Educational Media, develops award-winning documentaries and curriculum guides that aim to create safe, hate-free schools and communities. By giving youth and the adults who guide their development the tools they need to talk openly, RFAP encourages diversity and prejudice-prevention in all its forms.

BTW’s report, Reach All, Teach All, Respect for All: A Three-Year Evaluation of Women’s Educational Media’s Outreach Campaign, evaluates the outcomes of RFAP’s outreach and training efforts.

FCAA wanted to better understand and further philanthropic response to HIV/AIDS well into the 21st century. It initiated a study called the Funder Remobilization Project (FRP) to more deeply research HIV/AIDS funders.

BTW conducted in-depth interviews with 35 of the nation’s leading HIV/AIDS funders to answer several primary research questions.

Despite increasing demands for outcome measurement, nonprofit organizations typically do not have the capacity to collect, analyze and use outcome information.

This paper describes the process of planning and developing customized tracking systems for nonprofit organizations. The system is called OASIS (Ongoing Assessment of Social Impacts), and was supported by The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund and a collaboration of other funding partners.

The James Irvine Foundation’s Fund for Leadership Advancement Initiative was established to support nonprofit leaders to propel their organizations toward the next stage of growth. Leaders have access to a variety of flexible and customized supports, including executive coaching, visits to peer institutions, participation in executive seminars and organizational development consulting. BTW informing change conducted an evaluation of the program and produced this report, which describes the grantmaking model and its impacts, including how to support executive coaching as part of a broader leadership development effort to enhance the effectiveness of nonprofit leaders and their organizations.

During BTW’s multi-year evaluation of the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), we observed that CCI was particularly effective in extracting knowledge and lessons while the evaluation was underway. This made their grantmaking more responsive and strategic.

In this article, we identify five tactics that CCI used to ensure that the evaluation and its findings were real-time learning tools that could be employed right away. We also share how CCI’s unique approach to a widely accepted evaluation process has led to better-than-average success.

In 2003, BTW partnered with the Community Clinics Initiative (CCI), a joint project of The California Endowment and Tides Foundation, to evaluate its Strategic Investments Program. This ambitious program funded collaborative information technology (IT) to support clinics and health-center networks and enhance patient health care in underserved communities.

Wired for Change: Investing in Collaborative Technology summarizes the evaluation findings and provides funders, nonprofit leaders and technical-assistance providers with criteria for designing or implementing similar collaborative IT efforts.

BTW’s evaluations often include structured experiences to help participants understand the process and what can be learned from it.

In this article, BTW’s Director of Evaluation and Organizational Learning outlines key factors for successful learning communities and describes benefits of participation to funders. This article first appeared in LEARNING, the newsletter of Grantmakers for Effective Organization (GEO), in February 2007.

Zip Code Assistance Ministries (ZCAMs) are faith-based nonprofits providing emergency social and human services in the Greater Houston Area. In 2006, a funders’ collaborative in Houston, led by Rockwell Fund, Inc., partnered with BTW to plan and evaluate a new initiative with one important goal: to build ZCAMs’ capacity to serve the region.

The initiative was called the ZCAM Organizational Development Program, and was modeled on a project BTW had evaluated for three Bay Area funders in the past (OCGI).

To help funders formulate a successful initiative, BTW worked with the ZCAM Organizational Development Program in two key ways:

• Developed and facilitated an annual reflection and learning session for funders, ZCAM executives and key program partners
• Prepared a paper on social capital formation that laid the groundwork for the reflection session in September 2006.

BTW’s work informed ZCAMs’ organizational capacity-building and created a culture of collaboration and shared learning among ZCAM leaders as the initiative took shape.

“Reflective practice” sounds good, but who actually does it? The W.K. Kellogg Foundation enlisted the help of BTW to do just that.

In Fall 2000, the Foundation and several other significant investors financed the start-up of SeaChange, an effort to use technology to enhance connections between social investors and social entrepreneurs.

SeaChange was launched with considerable fanfare but confronted many challenges. In Spring 2003, SeaChange ceased to exist as an independent entity and merged with another nonprofit organization to form a new effort: Social Enterprise Alliance.

This report summarizes reflections on the lessons learned along the way by the effort’s funders, leaders and key observers.

As part of its efforts in building the field of Jewish service-learning, Repair the World commissioned BTW to conduct an exploratory study on the impact of short-term immersive Jewish service-learning (IJSL) on the organizations and communities that host these groups.

The study included interviews with representatives of host community CBO/NGOs involved in IJSL projects in the US, Israel, Nicaragua, Ghana and Ukraine as well as an in-depth review of recent relevant research and writing about best practices in secular and faith-based service learning. BTW found that when short-term IJSL projects are well planned and executed, negative impacts are anticipated, and potential problems are addressed proactively, then positive impacts for host communities predominate.

Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson was an extraordinary political leader and public servant. With help from BTW, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation conceptualized and produced a new publication to document Senator Jackson’s legacy of leadership in public service.

In The Nature of Leadership: Lessons from an Exemplary Statesman (July 2008), interviews with 15 of Jackson’s colleagues and staffers shed light on the qualities of leadership embodied by Senator Jackson.

In the fall of 2007, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned BTW to assess the landscape of Jewish Service Learning.

BTW examined the current capacity among Jewish Service Learning practitioners and the support required to expand that capacity. We also looked at the relevance of secular national service and other faith-based service traditions in defining the potential and development of Jewish Service Learning.

This report summarizes that research and offers a suggested action plan for growth based on our findings.

BTW conducted an examination of 21 volunteer programs nationwide to assess the true cost of organizing a high-quality volunteer program. The study helped the field better understand the implications of the President’s Call to Service for the nonprofit sector.

Read the results of the review and find out what it really takes to provide quality volunteer experience.

BTW champions the creation of jobs and other economic gains in low- and moderate-income communities in California. Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) does too, providing capital and resources to small, high-growth businesses that put these communities to work.

BTW was brought in to help PCV monitor and broaden its investment in these businesses, and we’ve been working with PCV since 2000 to articulate and measure its social returns.

In 2005, BTW produced a research brief regarding the impact of REDF social enterprise employment on disadvantaged youth and adults.The brief was based on data collected over a two-year follow-up.

For those data, we interviewed a sample  group from 991 individuals employed in REDF’s portfolio of social enterprises between 1998 and 2005.

This report highlights findings across several outcome areas, including:

• employment
• hourly wage
• housing stability
• criminal conviction rates.

BTW has prepared a series of similar reports for each of the REDF portfolio groups.

The Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative (BAWFC) supports innovative sectoral employment strategies and programs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. These programs prepare low-income and disadvantaged adults for jobs in high-wage, high-demand economic sectors, specifically in health care and biotechnology.

In October 2010, BTW completed its multi-year evaluation of BAWFC’s first two grant cycles, from 2004 through 2009. In this report, we examine the BAWFC model and its investments, highlighting key accomplishments, common themes and learnings. Our study includes promising practices that have emerged from BAWFC’s work and implications for both workforce grantees and  funding collaboratives pursuing broader systems change agendas.

HIRE LA’s Youth, a division of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, supports youth employment by preparing applicants between the ages of 16–24 years to earn and retain entry-level employment. The multi-step preparation Work Readiness Certification (WRC) process includes resumé development, customer service skills training, workplace etiquette, application procedures and a mock interview with employer volunteers.

In May, BTW conducted a survey of 1,970 WRC recipients and non-recipients to assess the impact that a WRC certificate has on youth’s employment status, job retention and wages.

BTW champions the creation of jobs and other economic gains in low- and moderate-income communities in California. Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) does too, providing capital and resources to small, high-growth businesses that put these communities to work.

BTW was brought in to help PCV monitor and broaden its investment in these businesses, and we’ve been working with PCV since 2000 to articulate and measure its social returns.

In 2005, BTW produced a research brief regarding the impact of REDF social enterprise employment on disadvantaged youth and adults.The brief was based on data collected over a two-year follow-up.

For those data, we interviewed a sample  group from 991 individuals employed in REDF’s portfolio of social enterprises between 1998 and 2005.

This report highlights findings across several outcome areas, including:

• employment
• hourly wage
• housing stability
• criminal conviction rates.

BTW has prepared a series of similar reports for each of the REDF portfolio groups.