The Value of Evaluation Technical Assistance In our practice, we have seen a steady demand from organizations for tailored, capacity building evaluation technical assistance (TA). The types of TA range widely, from developing discrete products, thought partnership, and facilitation of longer-term participatory processes. Most opportunities for evaluation TA exist within the context of grant programs or initiatives marked by specific activities and a preexisting timeline. This environment supports TA focused on completing the project rather than on building the evaluation capacity of the organization. We’ve observed the recurring challenge of finding ways to resource TA, in terms of programmatic structure… Read More In April, Jessica Anders-Mulcahy, vice president, Success Measures Evaluation, attended the 2026 GEO conference in Boston. Jessica shared her reflections on her experience. There is something wonderful that happens when you spend nearly three days in a room full of people who have chosen, in their own way, to envision a better world and hold a curiosity about how to get there. The 2026 Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) conference was an inspiring place to be. The conference created the opportunity to openly engage with complex questions: What are ways that philanthropy is thinking about supporting infrastructure and what does… Read More A core part of our work is building the capacity of organizations in a variety of fields to articulate their contribution to the change and impact in their communities. Our model, which includes working in partnership with an expert cadre of consultants, facilitates matchmaking the organizations with a technical assistance (TA) provider who can meet their specific needs. Our work with AARP embodies this approach. Since 2020, Success Measures has had the privilege of supporting the AARP Purpose Prize awardees by providing TA to build their evaluation capacity. The award honors extraordinary older Americans who support AARP’s mission of empowering… Read More For decades, the community development field has pursued understanding how community-based organizations contribute to neighborhood change. This critical understanding has been a north star as the field has gained a deeper understanding of the importance of measuring broader community change as well as housing production. NeighborWorks and Success Measures have been partnering for over 10 years to work with NeighborWorks network organizations to help measure this impact. Network organizations are supported by Success Measures through remote technical assistance. Success Measures helps these organizations execute neighborhood observations and surveys, and gather secondary and administrative information about their community through PolicyMap, an… Read More Our long-time partner, the Regional Foundation (RF), hosted their annual partner gathering in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania under the theme “Better Together” in late March. The foundation supports grantees focused on community level change in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. RF’s model brings together a constellation of resources for partners and grantees to lean into to support their ongoing planning and implementation work. Success Measures is serves as an evaluation technical assistance provider. Arturo (Art) Garcia, Jr., senior director, Success Measures Evaluation Services, leads our work with RF. He was excited to trek across the U.S. (from California!) to participate in the… Read More In mid-April, Katie Kristensen, manager, Equitable Evaluation, and Christina Johnson presented at the Collective Impact Forum Summit, sharing their session "Storytelling as Evidence in Equity-Centered Evaluation". Christina Johnson, program associate at the National Collaborative for Health (NCHE), partnered with Katie on the evaluation of NCHE’s Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing (CoHLI). The two leaders presented on behalf of the larger teams that worked on the evaluation. Drawing on their work with NCHE, Success Measures, in partnership with Datashine, used storytelling to evaluate the community and field-level impacts of the program. They shared why they chose this approach,… Read More The IEHP Foundation launched a Storytelling for Advocacy & Fundraising Cohort at in early 2026 to strengthen the nonprofit voices in the Inland Empire, an inland metropolitan region in Southern California close to Los Angeles. The program was made up of an eight-class training program. It supported nonprofit leaders representing 20 organizations with practical storytelling frameworks, tools and peer support. The IEHP Foundation invited Art Garcia to be a guest judge. On April 22nd, alongside other guest judges from local foundations, nonprofits, government, and media, Art listened to local organizations share their passionate and heartfelt stories about the why… Read More We wrapped up the year with a note from Success Measures' co-leaders, several reflections, and out-of-office notes. Please note that our office will be closed from December 24th to January 2nd. Reflections from Success Measures’ Co-Leaders Learning with Enterprise and their Thome Aging Well Scaling What Works Grantees Storytelling in Evaluation with the National Collaborative for Health Equity Success Measures to Provide Learning and Evaluation Services for Local Housing Nonprofit Out of Office Messages Read More by Lana Jacobus and Katie Kristensen About the Initiative Enterprise Community Partners launched the Thome Aging Well program in 2022. Funded by the Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation, Bank of America trustee, this four-year, $19 million program supports organizations committed to helping older adults living in Maryland and Michigan age safely and securely at home and in their communities. Under this umbrella of work, the Scale What’s Working program provides grant funding to scale work that improves the health and well-being of older adults with lower incomes. In addition to receiving funding, each Scale What’s Working grantee… Read More by Lana Jacobus and Katie Kristensen NCHE is a nonprofit organization that aims to promote racial and health equity by supporting community leaders, harnessing data, and catalyzing partnerships across sectors to create a more equitable and just society. CoHLI, an 18-month leadership institute opportunity, is a core piece of their work that is grounded in the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) framework. TRHT encompasses a community-based framework for action that aims to bring about transformational change through racial healing. CoHLI builds a unique community where leaders from across multiple health and racial equity-related fields have an opportunity to explore… Read More
