Evaluation of the Community Leadership Project 2.0

Social Policy Research Associates (SPR), the contracted evaluator for CLP, began work partway through the first phase of CLP and has continued its role for CLP 2.0. SPR's overall goals for the evaluation are to: (1) inform improvements in CLP 2.0 implementation; (2) share lessons with the philanthropic field on effective capacity-building strategies for small organizations working in low-income communities and communities of color; and (3) assess the impact of CLP 2.0 on community grantees. This report focuses specifically on the launching of CLP 2.0 and on community grantees' characteristics and capacity levels at baseline

Evaluation of the Community Leadership Project 2.0: Midpoint Report

The Community Leadership Project (CLP) is a collaborative effort between the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the James Irvine Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to build the capacity of small, community-based organizations (community grantees) serving lowincome people and communities of color in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central Coast, and the San Joaquin Valley regions of California. Now in its second phase, CLP 2.0 is specifically investing in increasing the sustainability of nearly 60 community-based organizations by focusing on common outcomes in three areas: resilient leadership, adaptive capacity, and financial stability. CLP 2.0 is characterized by integrated and intensive support for community grantees in the form of multi-year general operating support, selfdirected capacity building, coaching and mentoring, and a structured menu of leadership development and technical assistance options. These supports and opportunities are provided through partnerships with five regranting intermediaries and five technical assistance (TA)/leadership intermediaries

Building a Field: Blue Shield of California Foundation\u27s Strong Field Project Leaves a Legacy and Valuable Lessons

Relatively few comprehensive evaluations have assessed the principles, elements, and impacts of philanthropic organizations’ field-building endeavors. To help fill this gap, this article shares the results of a five-year evaluation of a large-scale field-building initiative: Blue Shield of California Foundation’s Strong Field Project. The project’s goal was to strengthen the domestic violence field by equipping it with a critical mass of diverse individuals and organizations to lead a stronger movement to end domestic violence in California. Its approach aimed to strengthen field leadership and organizations, and to create vibrant collaborative networks. Evaluation data show that the project achieved much of its desired impact on the domestic violence field in California, in particular by challenging long-held assumptions and entrenched patterns that had stalled the development of the field. The Strong Field Project may serve as a model for field-building initiatives across the nation

Building Capacity Through a Regranting Strategy: Promising Approaches and Emerging Outcomes

This is an evaluation report on the Community Leadership Project (CLP) in which 27 well-established intermediary organizations--community foundations, grantmaking public charities, and funder affinity groups--regrant to smaller organizations to provide financial support and tailored organizational assistance and coaching to small to mid-size organizations; technical assistance; and leadership development.The evaluation is interested in understanding not only the impact of CLP on leaders, organizations, intermediaries, and foundation partners, but also the key lessons on: (1) reaching and providing capacity-building supports to organizations and leaders serving low-income communities and communities of color; (2) characteristics of effective, culturally relevant, and community-responsive capacity building; and (3) which kinds of capacity-building supports are most effective for small and mid-sized organizations serving low-income communities and communitiesof color

The Legacy of the Strong Field Project - Final Evaluation Report

Since its early years, the Blue Shield of California Foundation (BSCF) has been strongly committed to ending domestic violence (DV) in California. This commitment to large-scale social change has led the Foundation to adopt a field-level lens for creating the conditions necessary for DV leaders and organizations to become more effective in addressing domestic violence.In response to a comprehensive scan of the strengths and needs of the DV field in California, the Foundation launched a bold, multi-million, five-year initiative called the Strong Field Project (SFP) in 2010. The SFP's ultimate goal was to strengthen a DV field that is "equipped with a critical mass of diverse leaders and organizations with sufficient capacity and the right support, tools, skills and knowledge to lead a stronger movement forward to prevent and end DV." The SFP has a three-pronged approach: (1) leadership development program (LDP), (2) organizational strengthening grants (OSG), and (3) networking building and knowledge sharing (NBKS).BSCF engaged Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) to assess the SFP's impact and contributions to strengthening the DV field. In this final initiative report, we look at the legacy of the SFP at the individual, organizational, and field levels and implications for the field as leaders move beyond the SFP to make their own legacy.SPR used various methods to assess progress towards the major SFP outcomes. These included (1) interviews with 66 SFP participants, alumni, Advisory Group members, Coordinating Committee members, and DV field leaders; (2) an SFP Alumni Follow-up Survey, (3) LDP organizational case studies; and (4) information gathered from training evaluations, pre and post assessments, observations, and document review

Toward Health and Racial Equity: Findings and Lessons from Building Healthy Communities

In this summary report, CSSP captures the what and how of the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative, work funded by The California Endowment. In addition, the report highlights major lessons from BHC that contribute knowledge to philanthropy and to the ongoing racial justice and health equity movement in California and the nation