Results and outcomes are very important to the Cowell Foundation. Because our resources are finite and the needs of communities so great, we want to know that every dollar invested in our grantees will help make a true difference in the lives of the children, families and communities they serve.
In order to meet this goal we hold our grantees—and ourselves —accountable to the highest performance standards.
Cowell’s evaluation process is both rigorous and fair. Program officers work closely with grantees through each and every phase of the grant lifecycle (beginning with the proposal, before a grant is even awarded) to ensure clear and realistic grant deliverables and that appropriate systems are in place to measure success and impact over time.
As the relationship between Cowell and a grantee deepens, our staff works collaboratively with the organization to ensure progress reports including grant deliverables are submitted in an accurate and timely fashion.
Our objective through each stage of this assessment process is guided by one overarching question: Has Cowell helped to make the community a better place for kids to grow up?
Types of Evaluation:
Recognizing that each community we serve is comprised of a complex and interconnected network of individuals and families, organizations and institutions, the Cowell Foundation evaluates its grantmaking on multiple levels simultaneously.
- Grant evaluations are performed to assess progress of each grant based on deliverables and benchmarks mutually agreed to by Cowell and the grant recipient.
- Cluster evaluations are conducted periodically to assess efficacy of multiple Cowell grants across a given program area (i.e. Family Resource Centers, Education, etc.)
- Community evaluations based on our theory of change help us examine a multiplicity of grantee accomplishments and other indicators in a given community (or set of communities) to determine the broad impact of our efforts over time.
| Lessons Learned:
Guided by values that include rigor and knowledge, the Foundation believes that collecting, measuring and evaluating results is essential to meeting the high standards of excellence we set for ourselves and our grantees. We are learning some valuable lessons about evaluating community change.
- One size does not fit all. We tailor our approaches in collaboration with our grantees and community stakeholders.
- How we get there is just as important as the result. Relationships matter with our grantees and together we need to know why a specific grant succeeds or fails in order for us both to make informed decisions and have a greater impact.
- The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. Examining collective achievements gained by multiple grantee organization across the broader community gives us valuable insights into how communities improve.
- Capturing impact in place-based work is difficult and often elusive. Achieving and documenting community change is challenging for both grantees and the Foundation. We are, however, committed to learning and will continue to explore the best methods for determining if the communities we fund are in fact better places for kids to grow up.
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| Listening to Grantees
The Cowell Foundation knows that effective evaluation is a two way street. That’s why we worked with the Center for Effective Philanthropy in 2005 to conduct a comprehensive Grantee Perception Study, comparing Cowell’s performance to more than 115 other grantmakers nationwide. Read a summary of the report here. |
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