AEA 365 Blog: Friends or Frenemies? Evaluation, Corporations and Sustainability January 31, 2024 By Catherine Ward Friends or Frenemies? Evaluation, Corporations and Sustainability by Morgan Buras-Finlay, Veronica Olazabal, Jared Raynor, and John Sherman Does evaluation have a role to play in supporting corporations seeking to advance environmental sustainability and other social benefits? In Friend for Frenemies? Evaluations, Corporations, and Sustainability, TCC Group’s Jared Raynor and colleagues in the field consider how … Continued
The Evaluator as Facilitator: Considerations for Good Facilitation Practice February 10, 2021 By Claire Schultz TCC Group Evaluation Consultant Ijeoma Ezeofor shares a list of best practices and resources for evaluators looking to improve their facilitation skills.
How Companies Meet Stakeholder Expectations June 21, 2018 By Marketing Admin Companies today are more engaged with and active in society and their communities than ever before, but they have not gained the recognition or trusted relationships they seek from consumers and the general public. Why? They lack a strong impact story.
What Does It Mean To Be A Strong Corporate Citizen? May 29, 2018 By Marketing Admin Tom Knowlton, Partner and Director of Corporate Practice at TCC Group, interviewed with Forbes to share his insights on what it means to be a strong corporate citizen. His interview with Christopher Skroupa is previewed on our blog, and the full content is available on the Forbes website.
Three Essential Elements for Evaluating Systems Initiatives April 16, 2018 By Marketing Admin You may be hearing terms like systems change, collective impact, and multi-sectoral initiatives a lot these days to describe situations where multiple actors are working together to tackle complex social problems. If you’re working or considering working within one of these types of initiatives, it’s critical to first recognize the complexity of the system (or set of interconnected parts) you’re working with and to think about what success would look like within that system. Although systems are complex, systems thinking – and the corresponding evaluation design – can be broken down into three essential elements…
Best Practices in Corporate Citizenship Structures December 18, 2017 By Marketing Admin Companies with strong reputations as corporate citizens are respected for providing value to society in a comprehensive way – through their products and services, their operational excellence, and their support of the community. As companies face increasing pressure from stakeholders to address complex societal issues, many are developing programs and initiatives with ambitious social impact goals, but often, without the requisite structure to ensure the programs are effective.
Be Informed: Developing Content for Media Campaigns (Stage 2) December 18, 2017 By Marketing Admin Media campaigns are intended to affect their audiences – such as convincing people not to text and drive, or persuading people to purchase a product or vote for a particular candidate. There are various touchpoints where media can help lead an audience from awareness to action on an issue . Being able to track these touchpoints – and the anti audiences engaged – enables organizations and media distributors to more efficiently and effectively test their content as well as intelligently move audiences from awareness to action at a faster, more effective rate. Referencing the four key stages in a media campaign , this post focuses on the second stage: content development.
Responding to the Call: How to Pursue Legal Advocacy October 26, 2017 By Marketing Admin Without legal advocacy, many norms and rights that people rely on, may have never been established. School desegregation (argued through Brown v. Board of Education), gay marriage (argued through many cases, but before the Supreme Court as Obergefell v. Hodges), clean water and air (argued at both state and federal levels as a myriad of lawsuits) – all were established as part of a legal advocacy strategy.
Three Common Questions about Funding Advocacy October 3, 2017 By Marketing Admin Since the 2016 election, my colleagues and I have noticed one of two things: more funders considering a first-time investment in advocacy, or funders strengthening their existing commitment to fund advocacy work. In response to this surge of activity, we’ve had the opportunity to share our findings – regarding effective strategies to support advocacy campaigns – with different groups of funders. These engaging and deliberate conversations generated additional questions – from which we’ll highlight three:
What Can Associations of Grantmakers Teach You? October 3, 2017 By Marketing Admin In mid-July of this year, I had the opportunity to attend the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers conference (#ForumCon17) in San Francisco. This conference brings together a large swath of the organizations that provide networking and support functions to foundations across the United States. I wanted to share some of my takeaways from time at the conference—some of which relate specifically to the conference and some to the valuable side conversations that happen when you bring smart, passionate people together.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Are You Asking the Right Questions? September 27, 2017 By Marketing Admin As an evaluator, I have seen varying levels of commitment to using principles of DEI and acknowledge that it is not always an easy or straightforward endeavor. Here are a few clarifying points on how I frame thinking about DEI and some guiding questions to discuss when thinking about incorporating DEI in your work:
A Statement of Values to Guide Philanthropic Collaboration September 6, 2017 By Marketing Admin For the past two years, a number of the leading organizations supporting and facilitating nonprofit and philanthropic collaborations have been coming together to share experiences and perspectives. Called the Collaboration Champions, this group has collectively published dozens of papers on the topic and worked with hundreds of different collaborations. Through work together, the Collaborative Champions realized that there are some ethical principles, or values, held common in the approach to building and supporting successful collaborations. They articulate those principles here.
Why Companies Invest in Social Enterprises July 25, 2017 By Marketing Admin When President Trump recently announced that the US was pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, over 100 major US businesses announced their intention to continue their efforts to address climate change. This is a prime example of how companies are responding to stakeholder pressure by developing new approaches and taking a stronger role in addressing complex social issues.
Be SMART: Designing Effective Media Campaigns (Stage 1) June 20, 2017 By Marketing Admin There are four key stages in the use of media. These stages include design, development, distribution and reflection. In this piece, we discuss the importance of design and the impact evaluation can have in this stage in creating a successful campaign, and subsequently detail the process.
Building Evaluation Capacity Across International Offices March 28, 2017 By Marketing Admin For NGOs with offices in a wide variety of geographic locations, establishing a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system that works for both the headquarters office and field offices can be a real challenge. If those offices operate in different countries, that challenge becomes even harder. Learn how Hand in Hand International (HiH), supported through Johnson & Johnson’s Healthy Futures evaluation capacity-building program, piloted a measurement framework in Eastern Africa, Afghanistan, and London that allows it to have a greater understanding of what is needed to achieve their desired impact and how that varies by region.