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Community Science is proud to present The Step-By-Step Guide to Evaluation: How to Become Savvy Evaluation Consumers, which we developed for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This new guide is designed for people with little or no experience with formal evaluation to help them become more familiar with evaluation concepts and practices, partner better with independent evaluators, and use evaluation more effectively to continually learn from and improve their work. Download…

School districts across the county are adopting policies to improve health and wellness among their students; in reality, the implementation of such policies is often challenging. Each school setting serves different populations, has different needs and resources, and requires an individualized action plan to address its school's health priorities. One way to support school district-wide wellness policies is through local school wellness councils (LSWCs) that work at the school building…

Federal agencies, foundations, and nonprofit organizations that are funding solutions to long-standing social problems need to continually assess their efforts and use the findings to adapt and improve their funding strategies. This article discusses the value and guiding principles for embedding reflective practice into the grantmaking process. Although many funders and social change organizations espouse learning and adaptation as part of their culture, it is our observation that actual efforts…

The St. David's Foundation (SDF) is one of the largest grantmaking foundations in Texas. SDF invests proceeds from St. David's HealthCare to more than 60 nonprofit partners that operate healthy community programs in the Central Texas area. SDF has contracted with Community Science to develop a monitoring, learning, and evaluation (MLE) system to assist them to better manage and improve the effectiveness of SDF's grantmaking. In understanding the importance of…

Featured from the Intersector Project: A Guest Blog Post by Margaret (Meg) Hargreaves, Ph.D. Adverse Childhood Experiences (or ACEs), commonly defined as 10 types of child abuse, neglect, and family exposure to toxic stress, comprise a complex, population-wide health problem with significant detrimental outcomes. Read the article here

Community Science evaluated MassDevelopment's Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) after it was first launched in 10 Gateway Cities in 2015. TDI aims to catalyze transformative redevelopment within focused districts in Gateway Cities, helping to accelerate economic growth and to benefit the people and small businesses connected with each district. The evaluation team assessed TDI's impact, documented TDI's influence within MassDevelopment (the sponsor organization), and recommended possible program adjustments. The team also…