Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Considerations For Measuring The Impact Of Policy-Relevant Research, Megan Collado, Lauren Gerlach, Caroline Ticse, Katherine Hempstead

The Foundation Review

Philanthropy, and the research and analysis it supports, has an important role to play in informing policy and making government more effective. Yet all too often, foundations and other research funders struggle to understand whether and how their investments have affected policy.

This article highlights the findings of an 18-month pilot project conducted by AcademyHealth to help the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation better understand the impact of a subset of the foundation’s research grants, across investment types, on health insurance coverage and health reform, and to help inform how the foundation may more systematically track and measure the impact of …

Network Evaluation In Practice: Approaches And Applications, Madeleine Taylor, Anne Whatley, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

As more funders support networks as a mechanism for social change, new and practical knowledge is emerging about how to build and support effective networks. Based on extensive review of different types of networks and their evaluations, and on interviews with funders, network practitioners, and evaluation experts, the authors have developed an accessible framework for evaluating networks.

This article describes the evaluation framework and its three pillars of network assessment: network connectivity, network health, and network results.

Also presented are case examples of foundationfunded network evaluations focused on each pillar, which include practical information on evaluation designs, methods, and results, …

Practice, Practice, Practice: Preliminary Findings From An Evidence-Based Practice Funding Initiative At The Peter And Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, Nicholas G. Randell

The Foundation Review

· The Tower Foundation supported a five-year initiative to support the implementation of evidencebased practices (EBP). The average award was a three-year award of $84,050.

· The underlying grantmaking theory of change was that behavioral health providers could bring empirically tested protocols to their communities and sustain them over time if supported by long-term funding to support the real costs of implementation (e.g., training, technical assistance, adherence to program protocols, and cultural change).

· Grantees cited the high cost of training, certification, and recertification – especially in the face of high staff turnover – as a primary challenge to implementing …