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TRAINING & CAPACITY BUILDING
Tipping Point Community invests in high-performing anti-poverty organizations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area with general operating support grants, technical assistance, and organizational capacity building services.
In 2018, Tipping Point asked Public Profit to develop and implement Driving Toward Impact, a community of practice for grantees that sought to deepen their ability to evaluate and improve their programs. Tipping Point sought to support its grantees as they gained the confidence, the support, and the knowledge to create and sustain a culture of learning in their organizations.
Over the course of six months, nine participating organizations that were part of the Driving Toward Impact cohort met regularly as a group to build their skills in evaluation and learning and received tailored support from senior evaluation consultants at Public Profit. Each participating member developed a Learning Agenda for their organization, outlining an iterative set of data-informed conversations driven by staff members’ interests.
How to support anti-poverty organizations as they build and sustain a culture of learning?
Tipping Point Community invests in high-performing anti-poverty organizations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area with general operating support grants, technical assistance, and organizational capacity building services.
In 2018, Tipping Point asked Public Profit to develop and implement Driving Toward Impact, a community of practice for grantees that sought to deepen their ability to evaluate and improve their programs. Tipping Point sought to support its grantees as they gained the confidence, the support, and the knowledge to create and sustain a culture of learning in their organizations.
Like many mission-driven organizations, Tipping Point grantees sought support in systematizing and deepening their evaluation and learning practice. They had written program theories, data tracking systems, and staff members dedicated to guiding continuous quality improvement, yet struggled to infuse authentic reflection and practice improvements into the daily life of their programs.
Building and sustaining a culture of learning requires both technical expertise and skill in promoting and managing organizational change. Our training and coaching supports were designed with a blended strategy approach with an emphasis on sharing evaluation and learning frameworks and methods that have worked in similar settings.
Each Driving Toward Impact member developed a Learning Agenda over the course of the community of practice. Learning Agendas describe two to three learning cycles, in which staff teams ask and answer key practice questions, then implement updated approaches to practice based on their findings. Community of practice sessions were sequenced to support members as they crafted their Learning Agendas, supplemented by one-on-one coaching with the Public Profit team.
Learning Agendas are intended to be internally-driven and practice focused. For us, it is essential to focus on the questions of practice that are most urgent and engaging for staff teams, which is often a stark contrast to grant-driven reporting that is common in nonprofits. Second, the initiative piloted a national learning community for leaders of color in the afterschool field that builds members’ capacity in equity-driven leadership practices and supports career advancement through personal exploration and analysis of power, privilege, and oppression.
What knowledge, skills, and processes are needed to support anti-poverty organizations in developing and implementing a Learning Agenda in their organization?
Tipping Point Community collaborated with Public Profit to facilitate five evaluation capacity building trainings that would support their grantees in developing a Learning Agenda to implement across their organizations. Topics included: Testing a Theory of Change, Selecting Evaluation Strategies, Preparing Program Impact Questions, Collecting Quantitative and Qualitative Data, and Building Data Driven Cultures.
Each session involved guest speaker(s) from non-profits and organizations who have experienced similar roadblocks in program evaluation or experts from the evaluation field. Grantees also had the opportunity to provide consultation to each other and receive feedback on their Learning Agenda.
Along with trainings, cohort members participated in monthly one-on-one coaching calls with senior evaluators at Public Profit. Coaching calls were great opportunities for grantees to receive technical support and feedback on their Learning Agenda.
The Driving Toward Impact cohort consisted of Program Directors, Operating Officers, and Evaluation Directors from nine Tipping Point Community grantees: Aspire, City Year, College Track, Compass Family Services, Homeless Prenatal Program, JobTrain, Larkin Street, LifeMoves, and Reading Partners.
All Driving Toward Impact members are in the process of implementing their Learning Agenda.
We would love to help. Book a free consultation with the Public Profit.
