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Full-Text Articles in Business
Advancing Philanthropic Strategy Through Evaluative Thinking: One Foundation’S Approach, Christine Baker, Margaret Eigsti, Kathryn Racine, Laurence O’Connell
Advancing Philanthropic Strategy Through Evaluative Thinking: One Foundation’S Approach, Christine Baker, Margaret Eigsti, Kathryn Racine, Laurence O’Connell
The Foundation Review
The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland supports Catholic sisters and their ministries in northeast Ohio through the grantmaking, partnership, capacitybuilding, and evaluation efforts of its Catholic Sisters Program Area. The decline of sisters actively engaged in ministry, due both to their rising median age and a decades-long decline in their overall numbers, called for a reconsideration and likely revision of the CSPA existing theory of change.
Unlike other strategic approaches at the foundation, such as ending homelessness or improving health equity, transitioning from sister-led to lay-led leadership of ministries remained largely unexplored: Basic research was lacking, and model practices …
Building A Culture Of Learning: Teaching A Complex Organization How To Fish, Tiffany Clarke, Hallie Preskill, Abigail Stevenson, Pamela Schwartz
Building A Culture Of Learning: Teaching A Complex Organization How To Fish, Tiffany Clarke, Hallie Preskill, Abigail Stevenson, Pamela Schwartz
The Foundation Review
Many social sector organizations are looking to balance their strategic plans with an ability to respond more quickly to change as it unfolds in their communities. For many years — but gaining particular urgency in 2015 — Kaiser Permanente Community Health saw a need to better understand the progress and impact of its portfolio and use its data to adapt strategy in response to its changing context.
To increase its capacity for strategic learning, Community Health worked with FSG to develop and implement a system called Measurement and Evaluation for Learning and Outcomes. While this process was tailored to Community …
Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice, Kelci M. Price, Chera Reid, Suzanne Kennedy Leahy
Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice, Kelci M. Price, Chera Reid, Suzanne Kennedy Leahy
The Foundation Review
Strategic learning is a powerful tool for foundations to achieve greater impact, yet foundations have struggled to create practices and behaviors that effectively support them in learning about strategy. Given that many foundations are engaged in strategic philanthropy, where they have specific conditions in the world they are trying to change, it is critical that they have the capacity to effectively learn about and improve their strategies.
This article offers three principles for strategic learning, informed by the field of strategic learning and insights from practice across three foundations. Each principle is explored in terms of what it means and …
Challenges And Opportunities In Philanthropic Organizational Learning: Reflections From Fellow Grantmakers, Jennifer Chubinski, Kelley Adcock, Susan Sprigg
Challenges And Opportunities In Philanthropic Organizational Learning: Reflections From Fellow Grantmakers, Jennifer Chubinski, Kelley Adcock, Susan Sprigg
The Foundation Review
As the field of philanthropy has matured, increasing attention has been paid to evaluating the impact of philanthropic investments. In recent years, the scope of evaluation has expanded to include an intentional focus on organizational learning with the goal of learning from ongoing work, informing decision-making, and ultimately improving impact.
With this momentum to carry out organizational learning strategies and share successes, the sector has not yet stopped to reflect on challenges and lessons learned in the process of building the capacity for organizational learning — the messy yet meaningful middle between a desire for learning and the implementation of …