The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health is committed to
ongoing self-evaluation in an effort to improve our effectiveness as
a funder and community partner. We have evaluated our grantmaking program
on three levels:
- Assessments of our individual grants: looking at basic compliance,
performance on objectives, use of funds, etc.
- Assessments of our funding priority areas: looking across grants
to see what is and isn't working and to summarize program accomplishments
and learning; and
- Grantee/community feedback on the Foundation's performance: looking
at the nature and quality of our communications, interactions, and
services.
Below are the formal evaluations we have commissioned under levels
two and three. Several of the evaluations also utilized findings from
the first level, by looking across results on individual grantee performance
to summarize how well grantees performed as a whole. The Foundation
has used and will continue to use these results to improve its work.
Evaluation of Grantmaking Priority Areas 2008
In 2006, the Foundation commissioned an evaluation of how well its
grantmaking program had achieved its goals to date. Specifically,
the evaluation set out to determine:
- How well funded programs were collectively succeeding in (1) preventing
child abuse for children ages 0-5 (this area was phased out in Jan.
2008)
and (2) promoting emotional and behavioral health for preteens ages
9-13 in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties; and
- The extent to which the Foundation's grants followed effective practices,
according to research.
The evaluation reviewed 22 grantees in the child abuse prevention area
and 41 grantees in the preteen area. The assessment used data routinely
collected from grantees and compiled by program officers, and analyzed
it in multiple ways to draw comparisons, discern patterns, and gain a
clearer picture of program quality. The analyses combined qualitative
and quantitative data to help the Foundation understand the results of
its funding and why those results occurred.
Grantee Feedback Survey
In 2005, our foundation commissioned the Center for Effective Philanthropy
to conduct a survey of our grantees regarding their views on our grantmaking
processes, interactions, communications, non-monetary assistance, impact,
and other issues. The results are benchmarked against other foundations
nationwide. We greatly value the feedback from our grantees, and currently
are using the results to inform our grantmaking strategic planning process.
Foundation Evaluation:
Programs for Preteens -- Benchmarks of Success |
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In June 2004, our foundation released the results
of a two-year study conducted by Public/Private Ventures to assess
the effectiveness of our youth development grantmaking program
and offer lessons for future grantmaking endeavors. The study
describes benchmarks of quality programs for youth and strategies
for addressing common program challenges, such as staff retention,
engaging parents, and providing services to children ages 9-13.
The report may be useful to funders, policymakers, and service
providers.
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Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey
In 2003, our foundation commissioned its first comprehensive
Grantmaking Program Satisfaction Survey. Altogether, 123 grantees, grantseekers,
and community leaders provided feedback on all aspects of our program,
from our grantmaking processes to our overall role in the community.
The results yielded rich information that has helped to guide our work.
Building the Capacity of Nonprofits to Do Evaluation
In 2005, the Foundation provided a grant to the Children's
Health Council to work with four grantees to build their agency's
capacity to evaluate the effectiveness their programs. A 2008 report
with lessons learned from the project -- the Collaborative Evaluation
Training Initiative -- is provided below.
The Foundation and these four grantees were invited to participate
in a larger study that examined effective strategies to build evaluation
capacity. An executive summary of this study and a resulting journal
article are provided below. The article proposes an overarching model
that describes how this type of capacity building should be designed
and implemented to maximize its success.
