Posts filed under ‘Advocacy evaluation’
Evaluating Advocacy: Challenges, Methodologies and Solutions
Today I was very happy to be with the European Centre for Public Affairs for a training on advocacy evaluation. For those who are interested, you can see my presentation slides below and I’ve also listed a range of advocacy evaluation and related resources.
Advocacy evaluation an related resources
Theory of change:
Julia Coffman & Tanya Beer (2015), The Advocacy Strategy Framework; A tool for articulating an advocacy theory of change
UNICEF (2014), Theory of change; methodological briefs
Advocacy monitoring and evaluation methods/approaches:
Robin Kane et al (2017), Contribution Analysis in Policy Work; Assessing Advocacy’s Influence
Harvard Family Research Project (2009), A User’s Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning
Julia Coffman (2019), Current Advocacy Evaluation Practice, Center for Evaluation Innovation.
Julia Coffman and Ehren Reed (2019), Unique Methods in Advocacy Evaluation
Oxfam, Process Tracing – Draft Protocol
Guidelines:
CARE (2018), Advocacy and Influencing MEL Guidance
UNICEF, Monitoring and evaluating advocacy; companion to the advocacy toolkit
ODI (2014), Monitoring and evaluation of policy influence and advocacy
Communicating monitoring and evaluation results:
Glenn O’Neil (2017), A Guide: Integrating Communication in Evaluation
CDC (2013), Evaluation Reporting: A Guide to Help Ensure Use of Evaluation Findings
“Think pieces” on advocacy evaluation:
Examples of advocacy evaluation reports:
UNHCR (2019), Evaluation of Effectiveness and Relevance of Advocacy Approaches in Europe
Oxfam International (2013), Evaluation of global communications campaign GROW
Measuring people power
MobLab has carried out a global study on how to measure people power – mobilising publics for campaigns and other initiatives. Here is an extract of the key takeaways
:
” key takeaways
For changemakers, if you’re not already measuring depth of supporter relationships and engagement (vs total numbers, or breadth), this report highlights a few ways to get started. Whether in a grassroots group, social movement, or an established NGO, tracking how committed people are to your mission (and to one another) and facilitating deeper relationships can be a big step forward.
For organisational leaders, this report is an urgent call to support cultures that are curious, innovative, and supporter- or people-centred. The results also clarified the importance of investing in staff and resources needed to build relationships with volunteers, grassroots, and community groups. The majority of the surveyed individuals found the very effort of measuring people power shifted and informed both tactics and strategy, guided day-to-day decision making, and was used to evaluate the past; essentially, to show them what was working and what wasn’t.
For funders, the results underscore the need to support organisations, groups and movements by investing in organising and power building, which don’t come with the same attractive metrics that we typically see in fundraising and digital advocacy. Funders should support both the implementation of sustained organising and supporter relationship building (outside of short term programme objectives) and ongoing development and experimentation in power building or “depth” metrics.”
Advocacy evaluation resources
Here is a non-exhaustive list of some advocacy evaluation resources available online (n.b. most links will take you directly to a PDF document).
Theory of change:
Julia Coffman & Tanya Beer (2015), The Advocacy Strategy Framework; A tool for articulating an advocacy theory of change
UNICEF (2014), Theory of change; methodological briefs
Advocacy monitoring and evaluation methods/approaches:
Robin Kane et al (2017), Contribution Analysis in Policy Work; Assessing Advocacy’s Influence
Harvard Family Research Project (2009), A User’s Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning
Julia Coffman (2019), Current Advocacy Evaluation Practice, Center for Evaluation Innovation.
Julia Coffman and Ehren Reed (2019), Unique Methods in Advocacy Evaluation
Oxfam, Process Tracing – Draft Protocol
Guidelines:
CARE (2018), Advocacy and Influencing MEL Guidance
UNICEF, Monitoring and evaluating advocacy; companion to the advocacy toolkit
ODI (2014), Monitoring and evaluation of policy influence and advocacy
Communicating monitoring and evaluation results:
Glenn O’Neil (2017), A Guide: Integrating Communication in Evaluation
CDC (2013), Evaluation Reporting: A Guide to Help Ensure Use of Evaluation Findings
“Think pieces” on advocacy evaluation:
Examples of advocacy evaluation reports:
UNHCR (2019), Evaluation of Effectiveness and Relevance of Advocacy Approaches in Europe
Oxfam International (2013), Evaluation of global communications campaign GROW
Webinar: How do Not-For-Profit organizations measure the results of their advocacy?
Join me for this webinar on Thursday 20th February 2020 at 15:00 GMT / 16:00 CET / 10:00 EST to learn how Not-For-Profits are measuring the results of their advocacy and what your organization can learn and do in this direction.
The webinar will be moderated by AMEC NFP Group co-chair Natalia Vaccarezza of UNICEF and feature Chris Stalker, Senior Advisor Policy & Campaigns at Oxfam America and myself – Glenn O’Neil, Founder of Owl RE research and evaluation consultancy.
Participants will gain insight using practical examples on:
-Challenges commonly faced in advocacy evaluation and possible solutions
-Trends in the field of advocacy evaluation
-Tools and tactics for effectively measuring advocacy results
Recommended actions for integrating evaluation and measurement in advocacy of NFPs
New resource: No Royal Road: Finding and Following the Natural Pathways in Advocacy Evaluation
Jim Coe and Rhonda Schlangen have published a very interesting publication on advocacy evaluation.
The highlight six factors that they believe should change for monitoring and evaluation of advocacy:
1. Better factor in uncertainty.
2. Plan for unpredictability.
3. Redefine contribution as combinational and dispositional.
4. Parse outcomes and their significance.
5. Break down barriers to engaging advocates in monitoring and evaluation.
6. Think differently about how we evaluate more transformational advocacy.
Humanitarian advocacy – an introduction
For those interested in the area of humanitarian work and advocacy, this presentation could be of interest – where I explain what is humanitarian advocacy – its definition, levels, process and challenges.
Originally presented at CERAH as part of their Masters in Humanitarian Action.
Practical lessons on influencing policy
A recent issue of Policy and Politics journal has a special focus on influencing policy, mostly about the work of research and academia in this respect. There are many parallels to advocacy and policy influence work in general, with this particular lesson I found highly relevant:
“Avoid relying too much only on evidence and analyses, instead combine evidence with framing strategies and storytelling”
The introduction chapter to the issue is free to access and can be viewed here>>
Presentation in Vienna: Evaluating Advocacy and Communication: Challenges and Solutions
Next Wednesday afternoon, 9 May, I am happy to announce that I will be making a presentation for the Vienna Evaluation Network on “Evaluating advocacy and communication: challenges and solutions”. Further information is available here. All interested persons are welcome to attend!
New resource: Contribution Analysis – assessing advocacy influence
As a long time fan of contribution analysis for advocacy evaluation, I was very interested to see this new handbook on Contribution Analysis in Policy Work – Assessing Advocacy’s Influence (pdf). The handbook takes you the steps of contribution analysis with examples provided.
Advocacy Evaluation Event: 14 June 2017, Washington DC
An evening reception for the launch of Annette Gardner and Claire Brindis’s book: Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation: Theory and Practice that I mentioned last week.
With a great panel for the event:
ANNETTE L. GARDNER is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.
CLAIRE D. BRINDIS is Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy and Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.
DAVID DEVLIN-FOLTZ directs the Aspen Planning and Evaluation Program at the Aspen Institute and serves as the Aspen Institute’s Vice President, Impact Assessment.
JULIA COFFMAN founded the Center for Evaluation Innovation. She has more than 20 years of experience as an evaluator, and now specializes in the evaluation of advocacy, public policy, and systems change efforts.
SUE HOECHSTETTER is the Senior Advisor for Foundation Advocacy and Evaluation at Alliance for Justice and helps amplify citizen’s voices in the policy process.
intelligent measurement 