Foundations
Partnering to Maximize Philanthropic Impact
Foundations play a vital role in driving meaningful change at both the national and local levels.
Whether supporting community initiatives or large-scale programs, philanthropic organizations need access to reliable data to ensure their investments create lasting impact and demonstrate the difference that their grants make.
Evaluation, needs assessment, and strategic planning services ensure foundations understand what works most effectively, where investments can be strengthened, and how resources can be directed most effectively as community needs evolve.
EVALCORP has had the privilege of supporting foundations for over 20 years. Our team assists foundations in gaining critical information to increase certainty about the quality and impact of their funded programs and initiatives. Our team works alongside foundations and their grantees to design and implement data collection and reporting strategies that inform outcomes and impacts achieved, provide metrics that demonstrate how an overall strategic funding strategy is working, and how to plan most effectively for long-term investments.
Services Provided
- Evaluation
- We collaborate with foundations and grantees to provide evaluation services that quantify the impact of programs and leverage data to maximize every dollar invested.
- Needs Assessment
- Our needs assessment services track evolving community needs and map service gaps so that foundations and grantees can determine priorities and strengthen funding as community landscapes shift.
- Strategic Planning
- EVALCORP’s strategic planning services utilize data to examine the big picture, clarify vision, and determine long term priorities to sharpen overall grantmaking strategies.
- Training & Evaluation Capacity Building
- Our team collaborates with foundations and their grantees to provide training and technical assistance that builds capacity for collecting and reporting on useful data consistently.
- Data Utility Assessment & Planning
- We partner with foundations and grantees to evaluate their current data ecosystem, identify gaps, and design tailored solutions to ensure that existing data supports foundation goals and ensures timely submission of required data.
Benefits of Partnering with EVALCORP
Clear, Actionable Findings: Foundations need partners who can translate complex data into clear, actionable insights that inform decision-making. EVALCORP specializes in presenting findings in ways that are accessible and meaningful to a variety of stakeholder audiences — from board members and donors to community grantees. We help foundations tell a cohesive story across their grant portfolio, synthesizing findings from funded programs and initiatives to articulate individual and/or collective impacts alongside the nuanced contributions of individual funding streams.
Efficient and Personable Team: Our expert team cares deeply about the work that we do, and this is reflected in the lasting relationships we build with our partners. Our clients consistently remark that we provide high quality useful information in a timely manner, while remaining collaborative and easy to work with.
Expertise Across Sectors: Our team brings in-depth experience across a wide range of fields relevant to foundation funding priorities including education, public health, early childhood, youth development, behavioral health, the arts, initiatives designed to protect the environment, and services for justice involved individuals and families.
Culturally Responsive Methods: To be effective and useful, data must reflect the complexity of the communities a program serves. Our consultants prioritize a culturally responsive approach that incorporates equity-focused evaluation frameworks, participatory methods in multiple languages (as needed) to ensure that data accurately represents diverse populations across both rural and urban environments.
Foundations Clients
A select list of our foundation clients include:
- Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada
- Desert Healthcare District and Foundation
- The Center at Sierra Health Foundation
- U.S. Sailing Foundation
- Ventura County Turning Point Foundation
- Vision y Compromiso, funded through the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- Vista Community Foundation, funded through The California Endowment
- Wyland Foundation
- See our full client list
Case Study: Evaluation of Statewide Public Health Awareness Campaign
Client: California-based Foundation
Service Type: Evaluation
Context: A large California-based foundation engaged EVALCORP to conduct a retrospective evaluation of a statewide public health awareness campaign designed to support communities disproportionately affected by a public health emergency. The campaign rapidly deployed culturally responsive messaging to encourage residents to adopt recommended public health safety measures.
Approach
EVALCORP designed and implemented a mixed-methods evaluation to assess the campaign’s contributions, document implementation experiences, and identify lessons to inform future public health communication efforts. Our team conducted an extensive review of campaign materials and program documentation, facilitated key stakeholder interviews and focus groups with partners and community, and analyzed secondary data to understand the campaign’s reach, engagement, and effectiveness.
Given the campaign’s strong equity focus, EVALCORP organized the findings by the specific communities the campaign was intended to serve, enabling stakeholders to better understand how messaging strategies resonated across diverse populations. Our team synthesized findings across multiple data sources to identify successful campaign strategies and opportunities for future investment. Results were presented through both a comprehensive evaluation report for leadership and a publicly accessible summary designed for broader audiences.
Impacts Achieved
The evaluation produced actionable findings on the campaign’s contributions to public health awareness across the state, with particular attention to how messaging resonated within communities most affected by health disparities. Key lessons learned were shared with foundation leadership to inform future statewide public health campaigns, while the dual-format deliverable approach ensured findings reached both decision-makers and the public.