funders

Grant makers invest in leadership development for many different reasons. There are three broad categories of goals and benefits that grant makers are interested in when they support this work: Stronger and more effective leaders and organizations; Social change in a community, region, or field; and, Benefits for the grant maker’s own organization.

Authors: Deborah Meehan, Ellen Arrick

Subjects: leadership development, funders, grantcraft, guide, guides-tools-reports

09/27/2003 - 23:00 - 0 comments - 1 attachment - Posted by Elissa Perry

The purposes of conducting and evaluating the results of this survey were to: explore the benefits and potential hazards of cost benefit analysis; harvest early learning about what constitutes a strong return on investment (e.g. numbers, strategic impact, etc.) and how it is achieved; and,explore methodologies and approaches for gathering data about the return on leadership investments.

Authors: Claire Reinelt

Subjects: cost benefit, roi, return on investment, program costs, funders, evaluation

04/22/2008 - 07:42 - 3 comments - 1 attachment - Posted by Elissa Perry

The production of this scan is an outgrowth of meetings of Greater Washington region grantmakers to explore opportunities for working together to accelerate positive changes in the region. The funders group identified the need to build the leadership capacity in the region and collectively decided to commission a scan to better understand the leadership needs and the strengths and limitations of local leadership and capacity building efforts. They partnered with the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, an organization committed to building the strength, visibility, and influence of the nonprofit sector. The Roundtable invited the Leadership Learning Community (LLC) to conduct the scan.

Authors: Deborah Meehan, Leadership Learning Community, Claire Reinelt, Raquel Gutierrez

Subjects: leadership development, funders, washingtondc, scan, collaboration

05/26/2005 - 23:00 - 0 comments - 1 attachment - Posted by Elissa Perry

Blueprint Research & Design, Inc. helps grantmaking foundations, individual and family donors, and philanthropic networks to achieve their missions. Our learning products fall into three interrelated categories: * Strategy & Program Design * Organizational Learning & Evaluation * Philanthropic Industry Analysis Visit the link below to see the list of documents (pdf format) available for download.

Authors: Amy Luckey

Subjects: evaluation, funders, philanthropy, research, program design

07/18/2007 - 11:04 - 0 comments - 0 attachments - Posted by Elissa Perry

This session was convened by the Frank Russell Famiily Foundation, the Northwest Area Foundation and the Ford Family Foundation to explore questions about the impact of community leadership investments that we have not been able to adequately answer for ourselves through our evaluations. Some of the themes that the group is most concerned about include ethics and standards, context, assessment and program design, indicators, program impact, and communication & dissemination. Download the session documentation below.

Authors: Deborah Meehan, Claire Reinelt

Subjects: evaluation, funders, cross program, community, change, theory of change

02/27/2005 - 00:00 - 0 comments - 1 attachment - Posted by Elissa Perry

The Evaluation Learning Circle engaged interested circle members in an inquiry process to better understand how personal transformation links to organizational, community, and social/systemic change, and how to evaluate it. Eighteen topics for inquiry were proposed. Participants were asked to engage in their own inquiry process over a six month period in advance of our gathering in September. Prior to the meeting, participants were asked to share the results of their inquiry. During the session, we had three conversation catalysts that focused on the benefits of investing in evaluation collaborations for cross-program learning and building the knowledge of the field. Four domains of change, and representative indicators, emerged from our collective responses as well as potential directions for evaluation work and a list of resources. Download the summary document of the process and the session below.

Authors: Claire Reinelt, Kim Hsieh

Subjects: evaluation, funders, cross program

11/27/2004 - 00:00 - 0 comments - 1 attachment - Posted by Elissa Perry