The Pew Fund for Health and Human Services in Philadelphia has launched a new evaluation capacity building initiative to help our grantees assess and strengthen the impact of their services on the region’s most vulnerable residents. Through group learning sessions and individualized coaching, the 15-month program will expand the abilities of Pew-supported organizations to monitor their ongoing progress, use data to inform their practices, and evaluate results to determine whether goals are being met and how to make improvements.

Curriculum

The curriculum will be designed and taught by experts from ImpactED, based at the University of Pennsylvania and McClanahan Associates Inc., and tailored to each grantee’s organizational needs. Specifically, participants will learn:

• How to identify the relationship between a program’s activities and its desired results, also known as “theory of change.”
• How to gather and analyze meaningful data, identify appropriate evaluation tools, and use more rigorous evaluation methods.
• How to build an organizational culture that prioritizes evaluation and learning.
• How to identify and implement data management systems that facilitate learning and track long-term outcomes.
• Strategies for developing in-house evaluation skills, funding evaluation activities, and aligning funder requirements.

2018-19 cohort

After inviting all 103 current Pew Fund grantees to apply, our first cohort of 30 organizations was selected based on need and interest, diversity of experience with evaluation and learning strategies, ability to dedicate appropriate staff and resources, and the estimated impact the curriculum will have on each organization.

Pew Fund grantees will be notified by email of future opportunities to participate in this initiative. 

For more information, please email us at pewfund@pewtrusts.org.