What’s Race Got to Do With It? Equity and Philanthropic Evaluation Practice

Dean-Coffey, Jara

doi:10.1177/1098214018778533

Cited by 34 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…For example, if an organization indicates equity as a value, then gathering information about how equity is demonstrated reinforces it as a value. In addition, when working with an organization like this one, the evaluation itself could use equitable practices to ensure the evaluation process enacts the organization’s values in an instrumental way, providing an additional aspect of alignment (Dean-Coffey, 2018). While we have used equity as an example, any value could be used.…”

Section: Values As Part Of Evaluation Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Making values explicit in evaluation practice

Gullickson

Hannum

2019

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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Values play a fundamental role in the evaluation process; however, evaluators and evaluation training have tended to focus on research methodology. Much less emphasis has been placed on explicit attention to values and valuing, and the steps necessary to justify those aspects of evaluation conclusions. In this article, we argue that to improve evaluation practice, we need to make values an explicit part of the evaluation process. Research done in other disciplines can offer assistance towards this end. We first provide a general discussion of basic practical applications of value theories. Then, we offer an example for how a particular individual values theory, Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values, can inform our work and encourage further exploration of approaches for incorporating value theories into evaluation practice.

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Section: Values As Part Of Evaluation Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Making values explicit in evaluation practice

Gullickson

Hannum

2019

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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“…Gullickson and Hannum (2019) critique the dominance of evaluation processes in the literature, with less emphasis on the values that inform evaluation conclusions. While diversity and racial equity were not mentioned by participants in this study, Dean-Coffey (2018) emphasises in the context of US philanthropic foundations that data and evaluation have a powerful future role to play in the equitable distribution of foundations’ knowledge and funds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…The utility of evaluation data by foundations is also contested, with multiple studies finding that foundations undertake and commission evaluations in response to normative or peer-pressures, but then fail to use the outcomes in future decision making (Anheier & Leat, 2018; Greenwald, 2013; Williamson et al, 2017). Key papers on evaluation in and by philanthropic foundations are often based on empirical data or observation from the United States (Dean-Coffey, 2018), and to a lesser extent, from Europe (Anheier & Leat, 2018). Comparatively little is known in the context of Australia, New Zealand or South East Asian countries, with some notable exceptions (Blewden, 2010; Leat et al, 2018; Williamson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Literature and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance measurement, evaluation and accountability in public philanthropic foundations

Williamson

Kingston

2021

Evaluation Journal of Australasia

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Philanthropic foundations routinely evaluate and measure the performance of nonprofit organisations to which they distribute funds, as well as the programmes that are funded. Another aspect of philanthropic foundations’ evaluation processes, which receives comparatively little attention within academic or practitioner literature, concerns evaluations of grant applications. While the focus of philanthropic evaluation literature is mainly on ‘how evaluation is done’, the focus of this article is on ‘how evaluation is understood’. This article details perspectives from interviews with 28 managers and trustees of Public Ancillary Funds as part of a wider study on the accountability of foundations. These public foundations must fundraise from the public, and donations to them are deductible against the taxable income of the donor, resulting in a significant element of accountability to the public for their effectiveness and evaluation of the distribution of their funds. Four main themes emerged through the exploration of how evaluation is understood from the perspective of these senior foundation leaders: motivations, values, criteria and processes of evaluation.

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“…Because power building is, at its core, about the pursuit of greater equity and justice, equity must be central to evaluation designs. The approach, method, and practice of evaluations about power should support the equity goals of power‐building efforts and be rooted in the equitable evaluation framework (Dean‐Coffey, 2018). The equitable evaluation framework underscores that power is non‐negotiable; power is embedded in the evaluation and the programs and initiatives being evaluated.…”

Section: Considerations For Evaluating Power Buildingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating power building: Concepts and considerations for advocacy evaluators

Fox

Post

2021

New Drctns Evaluation

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Power is a fundamental dimension of social change that evaluators regularly overlook. To evaluate power effectively, the evaluation field needs a necessary reorientation in understandings of social change goals, outcomes, strategies, and actors. A focus on power is a missing component in advocacy evaluation and represents a paradigm shift for advocacy evaluators. This article explores the theoretical contributions and methodological considerations of evaluating power, drawing from our experience evaluating nine community organizations' power‐building work focused on economic justice policy reforms. We conclude that four considerations can reorient evaluations to the role of power: (1) grounding power evaluations in equitable evaluation, (2) expanding the scope of evaluations beyond a focus on policy wins to examine individual and collective liberation, (3) incorporating frameworks that acknowledge and assess the iterative and cyclical nature of power building, and (4) clarifying the unit of analysis to consider how a wide array of actors build and wield power.

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What’s Race Got to Do With It? Equity and Philanthropic Evaluation Practice

Cited by 34 publications

References 27 publications

Making values explicit in evaluation practice

Making values explicit in evaluation practice

Performance measurement, evaluation and accountability in public philanthropic foundations

Evaluating power building: Concepts and considerations for advocacy evaluators

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