Organizational Capacity

Conducting ethical research and evaluation requires taking extreme care to protect the rights of research participants. As a private foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation is not legally subject to the federal laws that governing human subjects protections in research. However, given that much of the Foundation’s work addresses the needs of the most vulnerable children and families, the Foundation wants to ensure that the rights of individuals involved in Foundation-supported research and evaluation are appropriately and fully protected.

To this end, the Foundation asked BTW to help increase Foundation staff knowledge about ethically sound research. BTW developed a set of resource documents that provide information on what human subjects protection is and include flowcharts and guidelines on how to spot and address potential ethical issues in proposed projects. BTW then trained Foundation staff on how to use these tools to ensure ethical research and evaluation in their grantees’ work.

The Tides Center’s strategy development project is an effort to expand its model of fiscal sponsorship and provide high-quality services that meet project needs.

When Tides asked BTW to evaluate the project, we approached the job in three stages over four years:

• First, monitored Tides’ process of developing and implementing the new business model
• Next, worked with the senior management team to clarify the Center’s values and purpose
• Finally, conducted a multi-year evaluation of the implementation of the strategy and the national context influencing it

In the course of the evaluation, Tides Center and BTW jointly developed a white paper on the application of fiscal sponsorship in the nonprofit sector. BTW helped couch and disseminate the paper as a resource to philanthropic and nonprofit venues.

A funders collaborative in Houston, led by the Rockwell Fund, Inc., asked BTW to help plan and evaluate 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.

The ZCAM Organizational Development Program drew its initial design from BTW’s previous work with the Organizational Capacity Grants Initiative.

To build common purpose and new knowledge about capacity building, BTW designed reflection and learning sessions for the funders, ZCAM executives and key program partners. We tailored an evaluation framework tailored to the small, faith-based organizations in the Initiative.

This work resulted in a more cohesive funders collaborative and greater commitment from grantee organizations to engage in cooperative projects and shared learning. Ultimately, the grantees became new partners in a citywide effort to tackle homelessness.

The use of coaching in the nonprofit sector is poorly understood and underused.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund and Harnisch Family Foundation created the Coaching and Philanthropy Project to look at the support and use of coaching by its early adopters.

BTW has partnered with CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and Leadership that Works to take an unprecedented “deep dive” into learning about nonprofit coaching. Knowing when and how to use coaching is critical; we are identifying practices and models to help nonprofits and philanthropies become conscience consumers of the practice.

The Community Clinics Initiative (CCI) is a partnership designed to strengthen the capacities of California community clinics and health centers. CCI was founded in 1999 as a joint project of Tides and The California Endowment to provide grantees with funding and support.

In 2004, CCI contracted with BTW to design and implement a multi-year, multi-program evaluation to help understand CCI’s impacts in six focus areas:

1. Information technology
2. Technology-enabled quality improvements
3. Clinic leadership
4. Major capital investments
5. Strategic investments in collaborative information technology
6. Clinic networking efforts.

BTW’s findings are regularly shared with CCI staff, grantees, grantmakers and the broader community-clinics field to help inform ongoing learning within and across organizations.

The James Irvine Foundation Fund for Leadership Advancement Program provides tailored support (e.g., coaching, executive seminars and peer learning opportunities) to strength the leadership of nonprofit CEOs throughout California—and in turn, the capacity of their organizations.

The Foundation was especially interested in understanding this new program’s impact as it evolved, and engaged BTW to evaluate it over two years.

BTW provided the Foundation with periodic evaluation findings and reflections that informed adjustments to strengthen the program. The Fund for Leadership Advancement Program is now in its fourth year.

Since 2007, BTW has conducted program evaluations and strategic planning with a number of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s postsecondary and K–12 education program grantees.

Every grantee’s need and capacity is unique; BTW works with each to tailor evaluations to improve the grantee’s particular program effectiveness.

BTW also supports the Foundation’s efforts to enhance its grantees’ ability to use evaluation. We identify opportunities for strengthening evaluation capacity by:

• Developing an evaluation capacity assessment tool for determining “right sized” evaluation approaches
• Creating a tool with field-wide metrics for assessing advocacy and policy work
• Considering ways in which funders can better support grantees and their contribution to the field

The Organizational Capacity Grants Initiative (OCGI) was an early funder foray into organizational effectiveness grantmaking. Three Bay Area foundations launched the project to advance the capacity and effectiveness of 16 local nonprofit human and social service organizations.

The foundations asked BTW to lead an evaluation of the project’s effectiveness. We approached this work by assessing the collective impact of OCGI’s supports:

• Capacity-building funds
• Supportive engagement from the foundations
• Active reflection
• Leadership development

We are proud that the lessons learned and recommendations we presented from this seminal capacity-building initiative have been incorporated into the growing field of organizational effectiveness.