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Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy – With 2024 Prologue, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2022, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.

What if philanthropic evaluations told us that changes in the world had occurred, as well as how and why they occurred, including whether what foundations funded and grantees did contributed to those changes? What if evaluations made change pathways more visible, tested hypotheses and assumptions, and generated new insights based on what happened in the “black box” of systems change strategies? This type of learning comes from causal analysis — inquiry that explores cause-and-effect relationships.

Yet currently in …

Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

What if philanthropic evaluations told us that changes in the world had occurred, as well as how and why they occurred, including in what ways foundation funding and grantees contributed to those changes? What if evaluations made change pathways more visible, tested hypotheses and assumptions, and generated new insights based on what happened in the “black box” of systems change strategies? This type of learning comes from causal analysis — inquiry that explores cause-andeffect relationships.

Yet currently in philanthropy, particularly for strategies and initiatives that feature high complexity, few evaluations use robust techniques for understanding causality. Instead, philanthropic evaluation tends …