In 2021, Community Science began working with The Colorado Trust (The Trust) to evaluate the Building and Bridging Power strategy. The strategy funded more than 37 grantees (23 grassroots/grasstops organizations and 14 media grantees) from 2019 to 2024. The evaluation focused on the 23 grassroots and grasstops to intentionally bridge power between communities, community organizing (or grassroots) organizations, and grasstops policy advocacy organizations so that community voices could lead the development and implementation of policy at all levels.
The strategy faced immense challenges, such as leadership and staff changes at The Trust, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. As the evaluator, we had to adjust our approach and design to capture how these events impacted grantee’s progress toward achieving their goals. Their accomplishments were admirable, and here are several key takeaways from our analysis and experience as evaluators. These takeaways amplify the importance of understanding community, systems, and justice to tap into relationships that form community, build community members’ capacity to improve and transform systems, and ensure that systems work to advance fairness and justice for historically underserved, disadvantaged, and excluded communities.
Building power in communities requires a multifaceted approach that combines ongoing engagement, partnerships, and capacity building to galvanize, empower, and support communities to influence the decisions and policies that shape their futures. To build power, some grantees needed to directly engage with the community to disseminate information related to policy, elections, and other local initiatives. Some used existing relationships and partnerships with other community organizations to implement programming activities, connect residents to services, and to improve engagement. Several grantees had to provide training and ongoing support for community leaders and staff to build their capacity to advocate for issues in their neighborhoods. All these efforts were aimed at giving community members information, skills, and opportunities to engage — and to keep practicing the act of engagement — in multiple ways.
Funding to build the capacity to bridge, organize, and advocate was essential but not sufficient. Grantees needed resources to meet the basic needs of the community, such as food, housing, and transportation, especially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic highlighted the need for grantees to provide resources and services to combat food insecurity, housing instability, healthcare access issues, and employment challenges in communities across Colorado. These challenges forced organizations to rethink their work and develop strategies (e.g., door-to-door canvassing, community events, social media) to increase community members’ ability to engage in advocacy and policy change work so that they could become better prepared for future crises.
General operating support continues to be essential for the long-term sustainability of organizations fighting for equity and social justice and can serve as a financial buffer during unexpected events (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic). The Trust’s general operating support gave grantees flexibility to hire staff to increase their organizational capacity, create hubs where community members could meet and discuss topics concerning them, host community events to foster sense of community, support the development of community leaders, develop and disseminate information, and increase community engagement in advocacy work to influence local and state policy. General operating support ensured the survival and sustainability of organizations, not only programs that have to end due to lack of funding. While programs are critical for responding to people’s daily needs (e.g., food, shelter, etc.), they are insufficient for dealing with the inadequacy of systems meant to respond to and support communities.
Convening grantees to facilitate connections helped build a sense of community among all the participants. As part of the grant, The Trust hosted annual convenings that focused on partnership building, sharing lessons learned, and fostering a sense of community. Many grantees stated that the convenings helped them establish partnerships with one another to expand their services and connect residents with services they otherwise wouldn’t have known about or had access to. The Trust also adjusted the convening in response to grantee feedback, which helped build grantees’ confidence and trust in the foundation. The Trust provided transportation, hotel, childcare, and food to reduce barriers to participation. Grantee convenings tend to help grantees develop the sense that they are part of a community because they are working toward the same goals (i.e., the initiative’s goals) and share the same funder.
Relationship building, flexibility, and scientific rigor are all possible, even in the face of uncertainties, as long as we as the evaluator frequently and consistently communicate with the foundation team about necessary adjustments and their trade-offs, are systematic in our data collection and analysis, and engage grantees in co-interpreting and contextualizing the findings. We worked closely with The Trust’s director for the initiative and the evaluation and learning staff to continuously align with the foundation’s priorities and information needs of the grantees and to respond to unanticipated challenges. No matter the adjustments we had to make, we stayed methodical in how we collected data from multiple sources, analyzed the data by following the rules of evidence (i.e., triangulation, chain of data that lead to a conclusion), engaged the foundation team and grantees in contextualizing the findings, identified themes and patterns common across 23 grantee sites and unique to some; and generated actionable insights to inform the foundation’s capacity building support. Sometimes, we had to have difficult conversations with the foundation team but we were all explicit about our commitment to the initiative’s intent — to build community power.
Grantees, along with their partners, were able to have a significant impact on state and local policies because of having built relationships, organized communities, and connected grassroots groups with policy advocacy organizations. The grantees and their partners successfully contributed to 16 state policy changes by mobilizing relationships and networks and intentionally connecting grassroots groups with direct experiences with healthcare and other issues affecting their communities and policy advocacy organizations who had deeper knowledge about how to change policies. These changes impacted 5.7 million families and children and leveraged more than $145 million to implement these state policies. Seven local policy changes were also impacted, affecting 4,696 families and children and leveraging almost $5 million to implement. These policy changes will lead to sustainable change and help promote fair access to resources and opportunities for the impacted communities.
In conclusion, this evaluation taught us a lot about building power among communities that have been historically disenfranchised in Colorado, the perseverance of the 23 grantee organizations, the commitment of The Trust to provide multi-year general operating support, and the grantees’ success in passing 16 state and seven local policy changes impacting more than five million families and children in Colorado. It also reinforced the importance of focusing on community, systems, and equity and justice to effect long-term change.