Accomplishments: 

• Identification of issues and actions needed. Initiative evaluation was useful for Initiative management and technical assistance providers. The program improvement feedback model provided semiannual evaluation reports and 360-degree feedback to Foundation staff and technical assistance providers. This process produced very useful information for identifying issues and taking corrective action where appropriate. Moreover, grantees seemed to appreciate the opportunity to give feedback directly to the Foundation. 

Challenges: 

• Communication of the value of evaluation. Evaluators need to help organizations understand the utility of evaluation data to achieve program objectives. Initially, many Initiative grantees had a difficult time visualizing how the evaluation data could be useful to them. This was particularly true for community-based organizations, but also for technical assistance providers. Until program stakeholders could see the link between evaluation data and its usefulness for achieving goals, there was much suspicion about how the data would be used. 

Lessons Learned: 

• There is a wide continuum of receptivity to evaluation. In this Initiative, grantees had varied responses to the evaluation. Some grantees started and ended their work in the Work and Health Initiative thinking the evaluation was important to their work. Others started out skeptical and came to truly appreciate the ways in which an evaluation can strengthen the program. Still others started as skeptics and never came to believe that the evaluation was worth the time and energy it required. Although a formal assessment of grantees’ evaluation of their experience with the Initiative evaluation will occur in the future, TCWF staff believes that, on balance, most grantees viewed the evaluation as adding positive value to their efforts.
• For grantees who are receptive to evaluation, “empowerment evaluations” can be very useful. The Initiative evaluators used an empowerment evaluation that teaches grantees how to collect and use their own data. For some grantees, the evaluation experience provided an important breakthrough. In several CIOF sites, for example, data from the evaluation made a valuable contribution to funding proposals to the state that resulted in $700,000 in grant funds. Without a required evaluation in place, CIOF grantees would not have had the data to make a strong case for their centers.