EVALUATION
School’s Out Washington (SOWA) is a Seattle based intermediary that promotes broad access to high quality out-of-school time across Washington state.
SOWA leads the Best Starts for Kids expanded learning grant strategy for King County, including managing the grant application and awards process and providing ongoing technical assistance and training to grantees.
Public Profit has had a long-standing partnership with SOWA since 2018. We have continued to build a trusting partnership, insight into the dynamics and interworking of the grant program, and relationships with the grantees.
Throughout our partnership, we’ve provided ongoing feedback about what’s working for grantees and what gaps remain. SOWA has consistently used these reflections to improve their support for grantees and to strategically design the next iterations of the grant.
SOWA commissioned Public Profit to conduct a multi-year developmental evaluation of SOWA’s role as the intermediary organization for the BSK expanded learning grant investment. Our evaluation was multi-faceted, focusing both on SOWA’s varied roles as grantor and technical assistance provider, as well as illustrating the ways in which grantees are expanding access and improving quality.
Throughout the engagement, Public Profit provided SOWA with actionable and timely feedback about how grantees were experiencing SOWA supports, including program quality technical assistance, methods of performance reporting, and grant policies and trust-based philanthropy approach.
This project included conducting interviews and focus groups with grantees, following a subset of organizations through longitudinal case studies, synthesizing grantee narrative reports, and helping SOWA refine its approach to supporting grantees. We also developed data placemats and facilitated meaning-making sessions at the annual Bridge Conference to foster reflection and shared learning.
The partnership continues and the evaluation has evolved over time, focusing on SOWA’s varied roles as grantor and TA provider, as well as illustrating the ways in which grantees are expanding access and improving quality.
SOWA has demonstrated numerous strengths and successes as the BSK expanded learning grant maker and intermediary.
“Before getting involved with this collaborative through School’s Out Washington, we would just address the symptom of an issue. And if [a youth] did something, they would be removed from the program because we just looked at it as, ‘okay, you’re disruptive, we have to remove you.” With the initiative, we really dug deeper into why this is happening. And, how can we help [the youth] cope? We can give them tools to overcome some of those things that are creating those behaviors.” – Grantee Representative
“SOWA continued to be an ally and not an enemy. They continued to be lenient with us and understanding that we are doing the maximum of what we are allowed to do.” – Grantee Representative
““We paid more attention to giving students feedback and to teachable moments instead of hurrying back to continue the class content. As a result, our kids engaged more during the session, and they felt they learned more about how to respect other sand how to be an effective listener.” – Grantee Representative
The Evaluation Report highlights SOWA’s approach in managing this grant, celebrates how BSK expanded learning grantees deepened and expanded their services to youth and families, and shares the lessons SOWA learned throughout this initiative to support other organizations interested in enacting similar funding strategies.
