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Getting Real With Strategy: Insights From Implementation Science, Douglas Easterling, Allison Metz

The Foundation Review

Foundations are increasingly coming to appreciate the importance of strategy. But simply having a strategy – even an explicit strategy – does not guarantee that a foundation will actually achieve its goals.

To implement a strategy effectively, a foundation needs to operationalize it in the form of specific functions that staff will carry out and needs to create an organizational infrastructure that supports the strategy. The field of implementation science offers a set of tools for helping foundations address these tasks.

After introducing some general principles of implementation science, this article describes in depth the concepts of practice profiles, which …

Appendix - Program Officer Practice Profile - Using Implementation Science To Translate Foundation Strategy, Allison Metz, Douglas Easterling

The Foundation Review

APPENDIX Program Officer Practice Profile

Using Implementation Science To Translate Foundation Strategy, Allison Metz, Douglas Easterling

The Foundation Review

New strategies sometimes require foundations to shift their staffing, organizational structures, administrative processes, and, possibly, their culture. The field of implementation science offers guidance to foundations as they effectively implement strategies that depart from prevailing practice.

This article focuses on two specific tools from implementation science: the practice profile and the Implementation Drivers Assessment. The practice profile answers the question, "What does the strategy require of particular foundation staff?" The implementation drivers analysis explores the broader question, "What does the strategy require in the way of organizational change within the foundation?”.

These two tools were used by the Kate B. …