ext337: [Alliance]Evaluating Advocacy Impact and Building Organizational Capacity

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Presenters:

Sheri Brady
Director of Policy
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Gita Gulati-Partee
Senior Consultant
Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
Nancy Kopf
Evaluation Consultant
Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
Notes:

Gita:
Purpose of the session was to get participants thinking about levels of change along the road to policy change and not just the policy change itself.
Policy change in North Carolina takes an average of three years

Nancy:

Logic model (many alternate names) describes change over time; a full logic model takes into account resources, activities, and strategies needed to achieve change
Can only evaluate short term, intermediate term outcomes. Sometimes, especially for intermediaries, long term outcomes can be very difficult to measure or get to.
referenced Doug Nelson from the Annie E. Casey Foundation
- influence and leverage are important to measure and stepping stones on the way to policy change
denigrate non-policy measures/outcomes and so don’t focus on them
”...need to change the way we talk about outcomes to honor the things that are close in and contribute to change over time.”

Sheri:

Funders struggle with this, too.
Evaluating advocacy requires an understanding of what’s required to do advocacy.
Typical scenario:
- identify the long term goal: we want a law on the books.
- must identify the several steps that get you to change and evaluate those small steps as well.
- fit the method of evaluation to the type of advocacy you are doing.

[small group work]

Nancy:

from room:

Diverse advocacy groups impacts influence by being able to credibly and relevantly take the message to a wide variety of constituents.