On May 1, over 40 members of the Funder and Evaluator Network (FEAN)  joined together in a virtual coffee break to connect and reflect on the state of philanthropic evaluation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.  We were energized to see old and new friends from all over the country and across sectors come together to be in community at this challenging time.

by Sonia Taddy-Sandino and Jennifer Garcia

Over the last several months, COVID-19 has caused unimaginable human suffering and launched us into an uncertain future. Like so many, we’ve spent this time settling into our new reality of physical distancing, homeschooling kids, caring for elders, and processing the magnitude of this moment. We’ve also sought to hold space as a team to reflect on how we can best support the many nonprofit organizations and diverse communities that are profoundly and disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.

by Meghan Hunt

Tips from our virtual team on working remotely during the coronavirus

We have noticed that many of our partners who are able to work during the COVID-19 outbreak are switching to remote work from home. This may inspire some interesting home fashion, or you may be playing conference call bingo. Many of you are co-working with partners and pets while homeschooling kids. You may also be wondering how to make the most of this time. As a company with a virtual model, we have been learning how to work remotely for the past several years. So today I’m sharing our team’s top tips for working from home, particularly during these challenging times.

by Clare Nolan

Every year we wait with baited breath for the release of the new Center for Evaluation Innovation benchmarking report. Is it just us? This year’s report is particularly intriguing and we’re sharing six insights from the report.

by Clare Nolan

Here’s the thing—while many people desire to do more about equity, it can be hard to know exactly how to make a difference. And the reality is that the busyness of our personal and professional lives can sometimes interfere with the need to grapple with this challenge. This blog post captures co-founder Clare Nolan’s personal reflections on how our organization is grappling with equity in our practice and what we are learning in the process.

by Anna Saltzman and Clare Nolan

Increasingly, funders are asking how to engage grantees and communities directly in their funding strategies and evaluation. However, few resources actually exist to help ensure that these relationships go smoothly.

In partnership with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the Oakland Public Education Fund, Engage R+D has been piloting a tool to help funders and communities assess their readiness to work in collaborative partnership when pursuing systems change strategies. The tool is designed to provide recommendations for right-sizing co-learning to different readiness levels.

by Clare Nolan, Meg Long , Jara Dean-Coffey, and Julia Coffman

As philanthropies try to find their way forward in these complicated endeavors, a growing number of new initiatives seek to transform philanthropic evaluation in ways that can better support them and the social change they are after. These initiatives emphasize more than just the traditional assessment of impact. They stress the role of evaluators as learning and thought partners who bring cross-sector perspectives and multi-disciplinary expertise to change efforts. They center learning and evaluation in the change process, as part of the strategy for reaching a desired end.

We represent three of these efforts.

by Ali Miller and Mary Gray

“We will have no impact (on early childhood outcomes) if parents aren’t at the center of our work.”

Engage R+D has been working with the LA Partnership to learn more about family engagement efforts across the region. As part of this work, we helped plan the Summit with a cross-section of field leaders. Participants left the Summit energized, describing it as informative, engaging, empowering and inspiring. Below we share four takeaways from the Summit that captured our attention.

To better integrate learning into all aspects of our work, we as evaluators need to remove the barriers to learning, find ways to spark creativity, and lean into what gives us energy.

Last week, several members of the Engage R+D team presented and participated in the 2019 Learning Conference in Seattle, sponsored by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) and Philanthropy Northwest. This year’s conference focused on intentional learning practices and brought together a dynamic group of hundreds of learning and evaluation staff from foundations across the country and around the world. While we don’t aim to lift up insights from all of the sessions, we’d like to share four key takeaways that resonate with our practice and inspire our thinking.

by Mary Gray and Sonia Taddy-Sandino

In partnership with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) and their California Funder Partnership, we recently explored how an intensive cohort-based capacity-building program called PropelNext is shifting organizational culture and practices in potentially transformative ways.

by Clare Nolan and Giannina Fehler-Cabral

Last week, we had the opportunity to attend the Evaluation Roundtable convening along with 150 colleagues working in the field of philanthropic evaluation in snow-covered Minneapolis, Minnesota. This event represented a special opportunity to us. The seed for it was planted during discussions of the Funder & Evaluator Affinity Network, an effort co-led by Equal Measure and Engage R+D, which elevated the dearth of spaces for shared learning and professional development among foundation staff and their external evaluation partners. To date, Roundtable participation has been limited to foundation staff only. The inclusion of external evaluation consultants thus represented a departure from the norm and an opportunity to test the value of more inclusive conversations about advancing our shared field.

by Erika Takada

It’s National Public Libraries week, a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and library workers and support our libraries. In celebration, we would like to highlight one of our projects with public libraries and recognize the role libraries play to enrich the lives of people in their communities, including their youngest members.

by Clare Nolan

More and more funders are pursuing place-based systems change efforts to support long-term, sustainable improvements and outcomes. These grantmaking approaches require funders and grantees to work together in new ways that involve deeper collaboration, continuous learning and adaptation, and attention to power dynamics. In this post, we talk about what it takes for funders to partner deeply with communities to support their systems change efforts.

During the last several years, a constant barrage of events and forces have been challenging our thinking and pushing us to reflect on the role of racism, power, and privilege in our society. Many of us recognize that racism is deeply ingrained in our social fabric and embedded in our political and institutional policies and practices. What role can we as evaluators play in supporting efforts to truly dismantle systemic and cultural racism? What might we need to learn, or un-learn, to advance this work?

by Michael Matsunaga

At their best, convenings create space to generate ideas, catalyze collaboration, and inform strategy. But at their worst, they are a waste of precious time--disconnected from real issues and generating limited value for foundations and grantees alike. So, what does it take to bring grantees together in ways they find useful while also generating value for funders? Engage R+D partnered with the James Irvine Foundation last Fall to tackle this question in designing a convening for grantees of the Foundation’s new Fair Work initiative.