Strategic Philanthropy Research Group – Our work
- We help foundations develop and/or refine their theory of philanthropy and strategic priorities by eliciting interests and perspectives of Board and staff through interviews; analyzing responses to create a composite picture; designing and facilitating deliberative processes; clarifying decisions; and identifying implications for organizational development
- We facilitate strategic analysis, planning and thinking with foundation staff and Board in support of developing a sound strategy that is in line with the foundation’s interests and the community’s needs (including the development and testing of a theory of change)
- We identify and synthesize existing research to support foundations in developing evidence-based initiatives, promoting evidence-based models and assessing the merits of programs proposed by applicants
- We help develop logic models to provide an overall framework for program planning, management and evaluation
- With expertise in implementation science, we identify evidence-based theories and implementation strategies and make concrete recommendations for how to operationalize them in specific communities or settings
- We provide recommendations for specific strategies focused on systems and/or policy changes
- We design and carry out evaluations of foundation strategy to answer the foundation question’s and support its interest around learning and accountability
- We design and carry out evaluations of programs and initiatives support by the foundation to answer evalution questions and meet the evaluation needs of not only the foundation, but also grantees, partners and the scientific field
- Specific evaluation methods where we have expertise include:
- contribution analysis
- social network mapping and analysis
- qualitative data collection and anlysis
- GIS mapping
- surveys
- report writing and publication