Tilling the Field: Lessons about Philanthropy's Role in School Discipline Reform

Anyone concerned about how the futures of millions of children are jeopardized because of discipline practices that unfairly exclude students from U.S. public schools will be heartened by this story about how transformative change can happen.It's a story of how students and parents, civil rights advocates, academics, policymakers and government came together -- with help from philanthropy -- to advance reform.The linchpin was a four-year, $47 million school discipline reform initiative that Atlantic launched in 2010 to promote policies and practices that would keep vulnerable children in school and on track to graduate and go on to college, rather than on the path to prison.We hope this report will be useful to all who might benefit from our experience:For funders -- to inform strategic choices going forward, to anticipate future challenges, and to consider potentially powerful responses.For grantee and government partners -- to celebrate successes as well as to consider options for refining strategies and tactics going forward.For students of movements that protect the vulnerable -- to understand the complex arc of advocacy as shaped by intentional strategies and tactics as well as history and on-the-ground realities.KEY INSIGHTS1. When philanthropy and the public sector work together, a foundation's role should be more than just paying for a government-initiated project. Philanthropic leaders can add value by helping to define a shared goal and develop a structure for ongoing dialogue and decision making. 2. Philanthropy can help create opportunities for policy change through a strategic combination of investments designed to (re)frame the problem, identify and lift up viable policy alternatives, and apply pressure for change. 3. Grassroots organizing by parents and young people can play a major role in advancing changes to local and national educational policy -- and that impact is amplified when grassroots movements receive philanthropic support

Measuring Change While Changing Measures: Learning In, and From, the Evaluation of Making Connections

This case study describes the evaluation of a multi-site, decade-long community change effort by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that aimed to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children by transforming their neighborhoods and helping their parents achieve economic stability, connect with better services and supports, and forge strong social networks. The case study explores a myriad of issues related to the challenges of evaluating comprehensive community initiatives and keeping the evaluation relevant as the program evolved

The Story of Family to Family: The Early Years (1992-2006) of an Initiative to Improve Child Welfare Systems

Outlines the crisis in child welfare systems and the development of Casey's initiative to increase the agencies' frontline capacity, prioritize reunification, and provide neighborhood-based foster care. Reviews strategies, intended outcomes, and results

Hard Lessons about Philanthropy & Community Change from the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative

Between 1996 and 2006, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation invested over $20 million in the Neighborhood Improvement Initiative (NII), an ambitious effort to help three neighborhoods in the Bay Area reduce poverty and develop new leaders, better services, more capable organizations, and stronger connections to resources. On some counts NII succeeded, and on others it struggled mightily. In the end, despite some important accomplishments, NII did not fulfill its participants' hopes and expectations for broad, deep, and sustainable community change. In those accomplishments and shortcomings, and in the strategies that produced them, however, lies a story whose relevance exceeds the boundaries of a single initiative. Our goal is to examine this story in the context of other foundation sponsored initiatives to see if it can help philanthropy support community change and other types of long-term, community-based initiatives more effectively.As we began to review materials and conduct interviews, we learned of NII's accomplishments in each neighborhood, including new organizations incubated, new services stimulated, and new leaders helped to emerge. We also quickly discovered multiple, and often conflicting, perspectives on NII's design, implementation, and outcomes that were hard to reconcile. Some of this Rashomon effect is to be expected in a complex, long-term community change initiative that evolves over time with changing players. Some can also be attributed to the different dynamics and trajectories in each of the three sites.We have tried to describe all points of view as accurately as possible without favoring any one perspective. Moreover, we have tried to look beyond the lessons drawn exclusively from NII and to position all of these varied opinions within a broader field-wide perspective, wherever possible.The frustrations of NII's participants and sponsors are mirrored in many other foundations' major initiatives. Indeed, our reviewers -- who have been involved in many such initiatives as funders, evaluators, technical assistance providers, and intermediaries -- all underscored how familiar they were with the challenges and pitfalls described here, both those related specifically to community change efforts and those pertinent to other initiatives. Because the opportunity to discuss the frustrations candidly has been limited, however, they often are relegated to concerns expressed sotto voce. So it was particularly important throughout the review to solicit from our interviewees ideas or suggestions for improving their work together. We offer these along with our own observations as a way to stimulate further reflection and debate, because we believe that philanthropy has an important role to play in improving outcomes for poor communities and their residents. Few foundations have been willing to contribute to this level of honest and sometimes painful public dialogue. But by commissioning this retrospective analysis, the Hewlett Foundation demonstrates a desire to help the field learn and move forward, and we applaud that

Looking For Shadows: Evaluating Community Change in the Annie E. Casey Foundation Plain Talk Initiative

This case study explores the evaluation of a large multi-city initiative that sought to make contraceptives available to sexually active youth to reduce pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. The evaluation design included within-site and cross-site analysis and featured multiple data collection strategies, including a baseline and follow-up survey, a heavy emphasis on qualitative research, and review of administrative data. This case explores the challenges of evaluating a politically charged initiative, with many expectations on the part of many stakeholders

Getting Smart, Getting Real: Using Research and Evaluation Information to Improve Programs and Policies

Summarizes discussions surrounding each of the major issues that participants at the foundation's 1995 Research and Evaluation conference identified as affecting programs and policy making

Evaluating Comprehensive Community Change

Summarizes discussions around current and emerging themes in evaluating programs, practices, and policies designed to strengthen children, families, and communities at the foundation's 1997 Research and Evaluation conference

Early Warning Confirmed: A Research Update on Third Grade Reading

Updated research in this report underscores the urgency of ensuring that children develop proficient reading skills by the end of third grade, especially those living in poverty or in impoverished communities. A follow up to 2010's "Early Warning: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters," this report supports the link between reading deficiencies and broader social consequences, including how living in poor households and high-poverty neighborhoods contribute to racial disparities in literacy skills in America and how low achievement in reading impacts an individual's future earning potential