Evaluation

 

When in 1985 I assumed a newly created position as Director of Program Evaluation I was greeted by wary staff colleagues, who naturally wondered whether I would make their lives more difficult.  Murray Gell-Mann, a Board member holding the Nobel Prize in physics told me, “It’s impossible to evaluate what we do.” 

 

If the expectation had been scientific rigor, Murray was right.   But working with my colleagues we developed an eclectic approach to evaluation, using evidence and expert advice to assess the effectiveness of the Foundation’s grant-making strategies and their implementation.

 

Our focus was on decisions made by the Foundation; grantee performance was relevant, but secondary. We sought feedback on the theories undergirding our grantmaking strategies and how those theories played out in our collaboration with grantees. 

 

Over the course of ten years we evaluated nearly all the Foundation’s programs, including World Environment, World Population, Community Development, Mental Health and Human Development, Peace and International Cooperation, Education, and the MacArthur Fellows program. The results of these studies are unpublished, but a paper I wrote at the beginning of this work and another written after years of experience are below. A third example is a discussion of how a different private foundation might evaluate its efforts to strengthen an inner-city community.

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Program Evaluation, Assessment, Review

 

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Evaluation – Do we really want to do this?

 

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Steans Family Foundation in Lawndale

 

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Program Related Investments (PRIs)

 

In 1986 I was asked to explore whether the MacArthur Foundation should make program related investments. After consulting with Ford Foundation staff to learn from their experience. I developed a simple financial model to persuade myself and the MacArthur Foundation Board that a systematic program of program related investments was not financially risky, but actually a highly leveraged, even profitable philanthropic strategy. Program-related investments are recyclable, interest-bearing grants.

 

PRIs Don’t Cost, They Pay

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By 2000 MacArthur committed $138 million in program-related investments, largely in low-income housing and community economic development, but also supporting open-space preservation, energy conservation consulting, international maternal health, education, and a variety of non-profit organizations in other fields. It became clear that program-related investments were prudent financially as well as as powerful philanthropic tool. Twenty years later MacArthur had made PRIs totaling more than $500 million, both within its annual distributions and from assets, beyond distribution requirements.

PRI Investment Advantages for Private Foundations

By 1995 PRIs were becoming an important means of financing community development financial institutions. (CDFIs). At a national conference I gave a short talk emphasizing the need for multifaceted approaches for reducing poverty, in addition to social investments that provide essential access to capital.

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Half Truth of the “Capital Gap”

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Integrating Research, Policy, and Practice

 

In 1996 the charge for the Foundation’s newly created Program on Human and Community Development was to integrate support for research, policy, and practice in the Foundation programs of Mental Health and Human Development, Community Initiatives (community development and the arts), Education, and Economic Opportunity.

The talents of the Foundation’s grantees and my staff colleagues created rich opportunities for learning. The book written nearly 20 years later, “Proof,” Policy, and Practice: Understanding the Role of Evidence in Improving Education, was greatly influenced by this work. 

 

Overview of Human and Community Development

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The Foundation Board of Directors was a demanding audience. A memo to staff on writing for the board proved helpful. 

 

Writing Briefs

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