1. Presented at the American Evaluation Association November 2010
Thinking Outside of the Evaluation Report Box: Creating a Structural Change Grantmaking Resource Guide
Presented at the
American Evaluation Association
November 2010

2. Common Vision: The Idea
Establish and convene 2 regionally-based funder learning cohorts
New England and Midwest
Document and model best structural change grantmaking practices for creating “healthy communities with widespread equity for all”
Allow grantmakers to set the agenda and develop the process
Provide $100,000 to each cohort for grantmaking to test their work

3. Why Do It?
Conceived in response to a series of events and conversations taking place in philanthropy
Breaking down grantmaking silos
Lack of a shared understanding of concepts such as social justice
Lack of documentation about the practice of social justice philanthropy
The growing demand for metrics being made by grantmakers to their grantees

4. You Might Be Wondering…
Why “healthy communities with widespread equity?”
How did we get from healthy communities to structural change?
Why would an LGBTQ organization do a project with no clear, specific LGBTQ focus?

5. Common Vision Process
Foundations commit to a minimum of 6 two-day meetings over two years
Incorporated evaluation into the process from the beginning
Ensure “real-time” response and recalibration
To be a resource to the cohorts as they thought about evaluation as a part of their grantmaking process
Tightly wove evaluation, facilitation and program staff to ensure incorporation of evaluation learnings into the work

6. Common Vision Process
Structure the meetings to correspond to the process of grantmaking
STEP1:
Understanding Structural Change
STEP 2:
Framing Your Issue Through a Structural Change Lens
STEP 3:
Mapping the Field: Identify Goals, Evidence of Impact and Key Players
Picking a Strategy to Fund
STEP 4:
Developing and Disseminating Your RFP
STEP 5:
Evaluating Proposals
STEP 6:

7. Process: What Worked
Applying knowledge of what works in building communities of practice among grantmakers
And, every group is different, design had to be flexible
Creating a sense of shared accountability for the group process
Engaging participants in shifts in the agenda
Testing out approaches and tools, and then soliciting feedback from participants in real-time

8. Process: What Worked
Designing, administering and using the findings from convening assessments to understand participant experience and to inform design
Balancing integration of content experts with experiential learning and practice sessions
Having a combination of content, design and evaluation skills as part of the team

9. Process: Lessons Learned
Clarity about the nature of the “journey”
Maybe less frustration, more consistent engagement
Help individuals and organizations to determine earlier on if they were able to/or wanted to participate
Better understanding of prior grantmaking experience and knowledge of participants
Extended the timeframes for some parts of the work

10. Process: Lessons Learned
Clearly define roles and decision-making authority
People approach this work from a deep and personal space
Requires “care and feeding” that needs to be considered and tended to through the process
Formative evaluation notes should capture detailed mid-stream changes to process

11. The Role of Evaluation
Evaluators as participant observers at all convenings
Led participants through a Theory of Change process in one of first convenings
Aimed to “abstract” the cohort experience to best hone the frameworks, articulate the process, have examples of best practices and red flags

13. The Resource Guide Grounded in the Common Vision experience
Each section provides insights from the Common Vision experience, tools, and examples
Includes evaluation planning tools for grantees, annotated bibliography, and glossary of key terms

14. The Resource Guide
STEP1:
Understanding Structural Change
STEP 2:
Framing Your Issue Through a Structural Change Lens
STEP 3:
Mapping the Field: Identify Goals, Evidence of Impact and Key Players
Picking a Strategy to Fund
STEP 4:
Developing and Disseminating Your RFP
STEP 5:
Evaluating Proposals
STEP 6:
To access the Guide to Structural Change Grantmaking: Resources, Tools and Lessons Learned from Common Vision go to

15. Questions?
Karen Zelermyer, President and CEO Funders for LGBTQ Issues Jara Dean-Coffey, Founder and Principal jdcPartnerships Steven LaFrance, Founder and Principal LFA Group: Learning for Action