Browse strategy Resources
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Make a Difference for Your Cause: Strategies for Nonprofit Engagement in Legislative Advocacy CLPI developed this resource and discussion guide to motivate 501(c)(3) nonprofits in the U.S. to include legislative advocacy as a part of their core activities. Author: Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest ("CLPI") Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2006 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.66 MB) -
Making an Impact: Impact Measurement among Charities and Social Enterprises in the UK Ten years ago, critics dismissed impact measurement as too difficult, misleading, or simply not important. Today, 75% of UK charities measure some or all of their work, and nearly three-quarters have invested more in measuring results over the last five years. Making an impact offers the first representative picture of the charity sector’s response to the challenge of impact measurement.
NPC surveyed 1,000 charities in the UK with incomes over £10,000 to understand what has changed in charities’ impact measurement practices, the drivers behind measuring impact, and the benefits and challenges that it brings.Author: Eibhlín Ní Ógáin, Tris Lumley, David Pritchard Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (726.51 KB) -
Philanthropic Strategies and Tactics for Change: A Concise Framework This article discusses the various tactics grantmakers rely on to create impact. The author describes theories of change, theories of leverage, programmatic tactics, and grantmaking tactics. Within programmatic tactics he discusses the need for evaluations to allow for ongoing program adjustments and to inform future efforts. Author: Frumkin, Peter Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 31, 2002 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Picturing Your Data is Better Than 1000 Numbers: Data Visualization Techniques for Social Change Are you intrigued by infographics and how they could improve your communication strategy? Are you interested in what it takes for an organization to systematically use data? Or are you maybe even drowning in data and looking for someone to throw you a life-saving suggestion for software and other tools? Johanna Morariu, Beth Kanter, and Brian Kennedy presented a panel on data and information visualization at the 2012 Nonprofit Tech Conference. This video is a recording of the panel.
Author: Johanna Morariu Type: Presentation Slides Date: Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Power, Participation, and State-based Politics: An Evaluation of the Ford Foundation's Collaborations that Count Initiative The Applied Research Center (ARC) conducted a two-year participatory evaluation to provide an account of the Ford Foundation's "Collaborations That Count Initiative." The report identifies areas in which the 11 statewide collaborations succeeded, and draws attention to ways in which support to collaboration might be more effectively provided in the future. Author: Applied Research Center Type: Research & Reports Date: Apr 21, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.85 MB) -
Strategic Communications Audits This Issue Brief, a Working Brief from the Communication Consortium Media Center's Media Evaluation Project, explains how a nonprofit organization can conduct an analysis of its communications efforts in the areas of Strategy, Implementation, and Support and Alignment. The Issue Brief can also be used as a tool, as it includes a table relating Essential Strategic Communications Practices and their corresponding Quality Criteria/Standards. Additionally, there is an organizational "Practice Maturity Scale" to assist a nonprofit in determining its level of communications expertise. Author: Coffman, Julia Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2004
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Strategy Development: Key Questions for Developing an Advocacy Strategy In this strategy discussion publication, the author clarifies the difference between tactics and strategies, and offers nine questions that are part of an effective strategy:
- OBJECTIVES: What do you want?
- AUDIENCES: Who can give it to you?
- MESSAGE: What do they need to hear?
- MESSENGERS: Who do they need to hear it from?
- RESOURCES: What have we got?
- GAPS: What do we need to develop?
- FIRST EFFORTS: How do we begin?
- EVALUATION: How do we tell if it's working?
Author: Shultz, Jim Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
The Advocacy Strategy Framework This brief offers a simple one-page tool for thinking about the theories of change that underlie public policy advocacy strategies.
It first presents the tool and then offers six questions that advocates, and funders working with advocates, can work through to better articulate their theories of change. The tool—labeled the advocacy strategy framework—has several advantages over more familiar linear box-and-arrow theory-of-change tools:
Author: Julia Coffman and Tanya Beer Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 1, 2015 Be the first to review this resource! Download (365.89 KB) -
The Advocate's Evaluation Toolkit Evaluation is a powerful tool for learning, improving strategy, and making the case to funders for why advocacy work is critical to the issues they care about. Advocacy evaluation is a specific variant on evaluation, with a set of tools, processes, and approaches that are as adaptable as advocacy itself and help to define why advocacy matters.
Author: Spark Policy Institute Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 31, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
The Challenge of Assessing Policy and Advocacy Activities: Strategies for a Prospective Evaluation Approach This publication begins with an overview of the advocacy evaluation field, noting challenges to evaluating advocacy, the current state of advocacy evaluation, and guiding principles for policy change evaluation. The report goes on to outline a "prospective evaluation approach" which (in contrast to a retrospective approach) allows evaluation to become a management and planning tool. The prospective advocacy evaluation approach involves four steps:
Author: Blueprint Research & Design Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Oct 1, 2006
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The Colorado Trust's Advocacy Funding Strategy: Lessons Learned for Funders of Advocacy Efforts In an effort to help advance the field of advocacy and public policy funding, The Colorado Trust published this evaluation report as a joint effort between funder and evaluator, describing where they saw success, where they saw failure, and lessons learned along the way.
Author: Nancy Csuti & Ehren Reed Type: Research & Reports Date: May 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (576.26 KB) -
Understanding the Public Policy Landscape: Lessons from a Retrospective Evaluation (Presentation handout) This handout accompanied a presentation at the American Evaluation Association's annual conference in October 2013 in Washington, DC.
Author: Veena Pankaj and Kat Athanasiades, Innovation NetworkType: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Oct 16, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (387.9 KB) -
USAID Performance Monitoring and Evaluation TIPS TIPS
USAID's Performance Monitoring and Evaluation TIPS provide practical advice and suggestions to USAID managers and partners on issues related to performance monitoring and evaluation. These publications are supplemental references to the Automated Directive Service (ADS) Chapter 203 (pdf, 264kb).
Author: USAID Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Vision to Practice: Setting a New Course for Early Childhood Governance During the past decade, the federal, state, and local governments, along with early childhood experts and advocates, have been giving increasing attention to reducing the fragmentation, uneven quality, and inequity that characterize early childhood programs and services. A constant thread hroughout this work is the proposition that governance is an essential ingredient for building a system that can bolster all the important elements necessary for children's healthy development and learning.
Author: Stacie Goffin, Jana Martella, and Julia Coffman Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 31, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (245.55 KB)