Everything you need to evaluate your effectiveness

The James Irvine Foundation has assembled on its website a wealth of information about evaluation, including the foundation’s own principles, goals and guidelines and downloadable tools resources and readings. Why is this important? According to the foundation, evaluation is a key activity for four reasons:

• Importance of self-reflection: We believe that the quality of our work is enhanced by a strong commitment to learning from others and from our own experience, and we use this analysis to inform and guide program decisions.
• Improved understanding in the field: Evaluation results contribute to the knowledge base of the field and help our colleagues learn and benefit from our grantees’ experiences and program improvements.
• Accountability: Because of the tax-exempt status afforded to private foundations, we believe that foundations have a responsibility to attempt to measure and to share evidence of their effectiveness. Evaluation activities comprise 2 to 5 percent of our grantmaking dollars and provide the most direct source of information about program impact.
• A focus on strong organizations: Evaluation helps our grantees identify, sustain, and improve promising approaches to work in the field. Moreover, it helps to build strong, effective nonprofit organizations by encouraging self-reflection and program improvement.

Nonprofits wishing to launch, fine tune, strengthen or try a new approach to evaluating their organizational effectiveness will find everything they need by clicking here.