Learning in Context: Reflections on the Education Teams Approach to Evaluation

The S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, a spend-down foundation sunsetting in 2020, invested in four major education initiatives during its final decade of grantmaking. A firm believer in the importance of building and sharing knowledge, the Foundation also made significant, complementary investments in evaluation that were intended to help grantee partners improve their work and to capture lessons learned that funders, nonprofits, policymakers, and other education actors might benefit from. This essay offers a high-level comparison of the evaluation approach taken in each initiative and shares reflections on why we took the paths we did

Hiring an External Evaluator

Done well, evaluation is an authentic learning process that supports nonprofits, foundations, and their partners to make better decisions as they work to solve a range of complex problems. Most nonprofits and foundations engage in some form of evaluation, but few have dedicated evaluation staff. As a result, external evaluators play an important role in the sector. Responsibility for hiring them often falls to executives and program staff.Finding an evaluator may feel like a daunting task if you don't have a research or evaluation background. This essay seeks to help you put the hard-earned experience of others to use through a set of practical steps, prompts, and tips for matching the right evaluator to your need

End-Game Evaluation: Building a Legacy of Learning In a Limited-Life Foundation

This article shares the emerging hypotheses of two foundations, The Atlantic Philanthropies and the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation — each four years from sunset — about the opportunities and challenges for evaluation in the limited-life context. Few, if any, of the problems philanthropy seeks to address can be solved within a brief, defined time frame. Limited-life foundations can only strive to move the ball down the field before they sunset, and then enlist others to carry the work forward. Given this reality, these foundations are obligated to make a deliberate effort to share what they have learned with the players who remain. The article argues that systematically capturing and sharing knowledge — about programs, as well as social-change methods and grantmaking practices — can increase a foundation’s influence and impact during its final years and beyond