Beyond Basic Training
Continuous Progress: Better Advocacy Through Evaluation
Edith Asibey and David Devlin-Foltz describe the new Continuous Progress
website, which helps advocates and grantmakers collaboratively plan and evaluate
advocacy efforts.1
Grantmaker: I think my board is ready to consider supporting your organization's
advocacy work, but there's one question I know they'll ask me: How do you plan
to measure the impact of this campaign?
Advocate: Advocacy work is hard to measure. But we've been working
on this issue for years, and we have the support of key legislators. We know
when we're influencing their thinking and actions—we just do. Plus, we'll
be happy to show you and your board our media placements, letters from our constituents
to the White House, and the legislation championed by members of Congress in
support of our issue.
Advocacy organizations and grantmaking institutions that invest in policy advocacy
share an interest in getting better at evaluating advocacy's impact. But how
does our fictitious advocate go from counting column inches and responses to
electronic alerts to proving that her work led to policy change? This is one
of the several challenges we identified through the work of our Evaluation Learning
Group—an expert panel tasked with identifying best practices for foreign
policy and global development advocacy. Over the span of 2 years, we interviewed
numerous grantmakers, advocates, evaluators, and communications experts and
conducted an extensive review of recently published studies on assessing public
policy impact and related topics.2
Our work led us to develop Continuous Progress—an online collection
of tools for better advocacy through evaluation (www.continuousprogress.org).
The website features practical steps to help advocates, grantmakers, and consultants
plan and evaluate advocacy efforts and do so in a collaborative manner. Our
expectation is that the guide will result in more effective advocacy.
Although we designed Continuous Progress for newcomers to advocacy evaluation,
we hope that the tools will also help more experienced advocates develop a more
systematic approach to planning and evaluation. Over time, we believe these
tools will contribute to an increased demand for rigorous, carefully designed
evaluations of advocacy programs. Below, we describe the guides for both advocates
and grantmakers that make up Continuous Progress.
“Guide for Advocates”: Proving Impact on Policy
The “Guide for Advocates” helps groups plan and evaluate their
work within a dynamic policy environment. We show users how to define specific
and measurable goals and provide tips for developing a theory of change; we
encourage doing both at the program's onset in order to estab-lish baselines,
benchmarks, and indicators to monitor progress. The advocate guide also provides
guidance on building capacity to advocate more effectively as an organization
or in coalitions. Real-life examples illustrate the points discussed in each
section.
“Guide for Grantmakers”: Achieving Policy Change
The “Guide for Grantmakers” encourages grantmakers to define
their own goals for advocacy funding by laying out a vision for the desired
policy change and the needed steps to get there. We suggest that this process
will be conducive to clearer, focused, and more constructive dialogue with existing
and potential grantees. A well-crafted theory of change takes some of the “guesswork”
out of the process for both grantseekers and grantmakers. The guide also proposes
evaluation guidelines for grantees.
We urge grantmakers (and advocates) to accept that they will rarely be able
to attribute policy change to a single organization's activities. Continuous
Progress proposes instead that helping grantees prove “contribution”
rather than “attribution” is a valid and more provable goal. It can
also reduce tensions within coalitions when grantmakers and grantseekers agree
that no single organization should get all the credit.
Collaboration: Opportunities for Shared Learning
Continuous Progress brings to life the possibilities offered by
a collaboration between grantmakers and advocates during planning and evaluation.
The tools make it easy. A special icon tells users when they can easily jump
to the corresponding discussion in the other guide. If you're an advocate, the
icon tells you, “Here's your chance to see how a grantmaker might think
about whether to fund a coalition.”
The guides focus on the importance of tracking incremental progress, highlighting
the value of continuous learning that, when shared, builds capacity of individual
organizations and the advocacy field as a whole. Staying true to our own principles,
we welcome your feedback about ways to improve the tools; together, we can make
continuous progress.
1 The authors
would like to acknowledge Justin van Fleet and Tarek Rizk for their support
in the development of Continuous Progress.
2 Continuous
Progress features an extensive list of recent studies and tools available
on evaluation of public policy, advocacy grantmaking, communications strategy,
and studies of U.S. public opinion on global issues, among others. Visit www.continuousprogress.org/node/56
to view the full list.
Edith Asibey
Principal
E. Asibey Consulting
21-48 47th Street, 1st floor
New York, NY 11105
Tel: 646-239-8774
Email: edith@asibey.com
David Devlin-Foltz
Director
Global Interdependence Initiative
The Aspen Institute,
One Dupont Circle NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202-736-5812
Email: ddf@aspeninstitute.org
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