Goal

To enhance the leadership capacities of the executive directors of selected grantee organizations.

Initiative Description

The Fund for Leadership Advancement provides flexible and tailored support to executive directors of selected grantee organizations. This support might include executive coaching, visits to peer institutions, attendance at executive seminars or organizational development consulting focused on improving organizational performance. The fund is unusual among leadership-development programs in that it goes beyond one-time training events or conferences. Grantees are encouraged to identify more than one kind of support to foster an integrated approach, to enhance the leader’s ability to acquire new skills and knowledge, and to assist the leader in applying new knowledge within the organization. Additional details about the fund are available here.

Evaluation

The purpose of this evaluation is to help Irvine better understand how the Fund for Leadership Advancement has helped participating executive directors enhance their own leadership and their organization’s capacity. The evaluation is designed to be formative — in other words, it will provide early feedback on design and implementation, so that we can identify promising practices, lessons and ways to refine and strengthen this initiative moving forward.

Objectives:

Our objectives for the evaluation are to:

Assess the appropriateness of the level of funding, processes and support provided by Irvine
Identify approaches and strategies that offer particular promise for leadership development
Offer a preliminary assessment of the ways that the fund has advanced specific organizational outcomes and changes in the leadership capacities of program participants

Most of the objectives for this evaluation are descriptive in nature. Specific impacts will focus on short-term outcomes at the individual and organizational levels. Though we have identified long-term outcomes as part of the fund’s theory of change, they are not included as measures for this formative evaluation.

Time frame:

2006 – 2009

Participating grantees:

Since its inception in 2005, the Fund for Leadership Advancement has made six to 12 grants per year. This evaluation focuses on 20 executive directors whose organizations received grants in 2005 and 2006. A full list of grantees is available here.

Methods:

This evaluation combines qualitative and quantitative data from both primary and secondary sources. The evaluators are reviewing program materials and narrative reports on activities. They are also surveying and interviewing executive directors and others in the organization to assess program implementation and outcomes. Finally, the evaluators will interview Irvine staff who serve on the Fund for Leadership Advancement team and the organizational development consultant who is providing technical assistance to the grantees.

Findings:

We plan to report findings in 2009 in order to share lessons with other funders, consultants and organizations that support leadership development and nonprofit organizational capacity building.

Related materials:

Evaluator:

Kim Ammann Howard, Ph.D.
Director of Evaluation & Organizational Learning
BTW informing change
2550 Ninth Street, Suite 113
Berkeley CA 94710
510.665.6100
www.btw.informingchange.com

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