Ideas

Across the country, mission-driven organizations are navigating enormous uncertainty — shifting local and federal landscapes, budget constraints, rising community needs, and a sense that the ground is constantly moving. Yet even in this environment, organizations still hold power: the power to influence, to convene, to use data in meaningful ways, and to shape better futures for youth and families.

Our recent partnership with Family League of Baltimore, Baltimore City’s local management board, has been a reminder of what becomes possible when organizations lean into this power with intention. Although the final evaluation findings are not yet public, the process itself offers lessons for nonprofits and funders committed to using data for strategy, learning, and systems change.

1. Recognizing the Power You Already Hold
One theme that emerged strongly in our conversations with Family League is the importance of recognizing your influence — even when the landscape feels uncertain.

As the steward of city and state dollars, Family League plays a critical role in aligning resources with community needs. But what stood out in our work together was not only their position in the ecosystem — it was their willingness to ask, “Where can we influence now? How can we use what we’re learning to advocate for what youth and families actually need?”

This is a question many organizations are grappling with. The political and economic environment may feel volatile, but mission-driven organizations still hold meaningful levers:

•  convening partners
• elevating community voice
• using data to advocate for investments and policy shifts
• embedding equity and healing-centered approaches in programs

Naming that power — and using it intentionally — creates momentum even in uncertain times.

2. Slowing Down to Use Data for Strategy (Not Just Reporting)

In our interview with Family League, one point came up repeatedly: using data to drive strategy takes time, space, and intentionality. It is rarely a single meeting or a standalone report. It is a multi-step process of sharing information, interpreting it together, and determining what it means at different levels of the system.

Across our work, we see organizations benefit most when they create structured opportunities for:

• Leadership teams to make sense of data and refine strategy
• Grantees to reflect on their own outcomes and share promising practices
• Cross-organizational or cross-neighborhood partners to examine data collectively
• Community and youth leaders to interpret findings, contextualize them, and shape priorities

This multi-layered meaning-making process was central it. It enables funders to strengthen relationships with grantee partners, elevate community and staff perspectives, and realign supports around what partners said they needed most.

Importantly, this work is iterative. Data is not a one-time product — it’s a recurring cycle of learning, adjusting, and trying again.

3. A Collaborative Process That Moves You Forward

One insight Jessie shared in the interview is something we hear often from grantees and funders alike: the process matters as much as the final deliverable. The way an evaluation is conducted can either build trust, clarity, and confidence — or drain energy, widen gaps, and create confusion.

A few elements of the process stood out in this partnership:

• Deep collaboration from the start. Meetings became working sessions with shared decision-making, rather than presentations to “approve.”
• Meaningful engagement with youth, program staff, and community partners. Evaluation data collection activities were designed to be not just safe, but positive — a chance to reflect, reconnect, and celebrate wins on the ground.
• Understanding of the local context. Family League’s programs operate across diverse Baltimore neighborhoods, and the evaluation centered those differences.
• A focus on learning and advocacy. From the beginning, Family League wanted insights they could use in discussions with community partners, city leaders, and funders.

These elements helped create a process that didn’t just document what was happening — it strengthened relationships, elevated youth experiences, and produced insights that Family League can bring into strategy, advocacy, and community conversations.

Why This Matters Beyond Baltimore

Although this work is grounded in Baltimore, the insights resonate across communities:

• Organizations have more influence than they often realize — especially when they use data to advocate for what works.
• Strategy informed by data requires time and collaboration at multiple levels.
• A strong, human-centered evaluation process can strengthen programs, deepen learning, and elevate community voice even before findings are released.

In a moment when communities are stretched, funders are rethinking investments, and youth and families are facing overlapping challenges, these lessons feel especially urgent.

What gives me hope is what we’ve seen through Family League of Baltimore: when organizations choose to slow down, ask hard questions, and collaborate around data, it opens the door to strategy shifts that are community-driven, equity-centered, and actionable.

And that process — not just the findings — is what moves systems toward change.