Results Matter: Childhood Obesity Prevention Program

This edition of Results Matter highlights findings from the evaluation of Healthcare Georgia Foundation's Childhood Obesity Prevention Program (COPP). In 2013, the Foundation launched the COPP to support community-based coalitions addressing the conditions that affect children's ability to live a healthy lifestyle in Georgia. Four COPP grantees pursued various strategies to increase access to opportunities for physical activity and were instrumental in guiding communities to implement local policies that support a healthier lifestyle.

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Building Evaluation Muscle: Practical Steps for Health Nonprofits at Any Stage

Evaluation: resisted by nonprofits, desired by funders, and misunderstood by many. At a basic level, evaluation is simply the exercise of studying the past in order to make better decisions about the future. This publication is part of a suite of publications that demonstrates how nonprofit organizations, regardless of where they are on the spectrum of evaluation capacity, and regardless of their desire to conduct evaluation internally or use external consultants, can strengthen their ability to engage in and sustain an ongoing evaluation practice.

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Evaluation in Underserved Communities

Every year throughout the state of Georgia new organizations emerge with some of the most innovative approaches imaginable aimed at addressing very complex health problems among diverse groups of vulnerable populations. Evaluation in Underserved Communities is designed as a resource for both newly formed and smaller organizations to provide program administrators with a practical guide in applying best practices towards establishing a strong foundation for evaluating community-based programs serving underserved populations. It aims to outline key tasks and strategies for conducting evaluation in organizations working in underserved communities; and thereby contributing to the process of helping promising programs reach their full potential and institutionalize evaluation practices.

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Selecting and Working with an External Evaluator

Well-designed evaluations can help your organization assess the impact it is having on the population it serves. It can also be used to monitor the extent to which a program is being carried out or delivered in the way that it was intended. In either case, working with an experienced, external evaluator can be an efficient and effective way to design and implement an evaluation that meets your needs and those of your stakeholders. This publication is designed to help you determine the most appropriate evaluation resource for your organization’s unique needs, including how to find and engage and evaluator, establishing reasonable expectations, and working through the evaluation process.

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Results Matter: Capacity Building Project

This edition of Results Matter reports findings of a focused evaluation of Healthcare Georgia Foundation’s Capacity Building Project (CPB). Since 2004, the Foundation has partnered with the Georgia Center for Nonprofits (GCN) to strengthen health nonprofits in Georgia through organizational assessments, technical assistance consulting, training workshops/peer learning, and coaching. During a nine-year period, 53 nonprofit health organizations have been served. Approximately half of these organizations are past or current Foundation grantees, though the program was made available to nonprofit health organizations regardless of grantee status.

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Using Focus Groups to Enhance Your Evaluation

Like most organizations, health nonprofits have questions about how others perceive their organization and/or programs. This publication introduces the concept of using focus groups to enhance evaluation for nonprofit organizations, including: focus group definition and use, planning and conducting a focus group, and post focus group tactics. It also features case studies and tips on how to bet analyze, interpret, and use findings.

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Understanding Public Attitudes: A Primer on Polling the General Public

The purpose of this publication is to help nonprofit health organizations understand what polling is and what strategic value surveys can offer them. It also features the benefits of public opinion research, strengths and weaknesses of several methodologies, and data analysis. Nonprofits will also gain insight about working with a research partner, including how to avoid pitfalls and ensure that the process accomplishes strategic objectives.

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Media Relations Strategy, Tracking and Evaluation Essentials for Nonprofit Organizations

As a nonprofit health organization, you have a variety of resources available to help you deliver your story and messages to key stakeholders. In this guide, we will take you through the basics of delivering a media relations strategy that builds visibility and credibility, creates buzz, attracts interest from funders, helps to diffuse a potential crisis, and much more. We will help you understand the best way to approach media leaders we will show you how to measure and evaluate the success of your efforts – so that you can better determine the return on investment of your media efforts.

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Storytelling Approaches to Program Evaluation: An Introductory Guide

Traditional approaches to reporting the results of program evaluations, which rely on formal questionnaires and statistical data, fail to offer the program participants the chance to tell their own stories in their words. Storytelling can be an important method or strategy for capturing and communicating results of a program or organization to various audiences. In fact, many funders and stakeholders are now encouraging grantees to include stories in their evaluation reports. The purpose of this publication is to provide nonprofit health organizations with information and suggestions on how to collect and share stories as part of a program evaluation.

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Webinar: Evaluating Collaborative Efforts: Building on the Concept of Collective Impact

The Evaluation Resource Center is pleased to announce the launch of our alumni services with a webinar on Collective Impact and Evaluating Collaborative Efforts. No individual or organization alone can solve large, complex social problems—we need to work together. This one-hour webinar explores the concept of "Collective Impact" and how this relates to the collaborative work of nonprofits. In particular, the webinar explores how you can evaluate and communicate your organization’s contributions to collaborative efforts.

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Health Impact Assessment – A Primer on Giving Health a Seat at the Decision-making Table

Health Impact Assessment (HIA) refers to a specific tool and analytic process that is designed to help policy– and decision-makers consider the health effects of their decisions about a wide range of sectors not traditionally considered to be directly related to health. This publication presents the six steps to Health Impact Assessment completion: screening, scoping, assessment of health effects, recommendations, reporting and communication and monitoring and evaluation.

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Video: Giving Health a Seat at the Decision Making Table

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Results Matter: Children's Physical Activity and Nutrition Program

One-third of Georgia’s children are overweight or at risk for childhood obesity. These children and youth face health consequences, such as Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

In 2006, Healthcare Georgia Foundation awarded grants to five nonprofit organizations in Georgia to develop innovative, cross-site, multi-year programs designed to raise the level of physical activity and increase the consumption of healthy foods among Georgia’s school children. The Children’s Physical Activity and Nutrition program, or CPAN, aimed to engage members of the community to seek effective, sustainable solutions that benefit Georgia’s children.

This, the inaugural issue of Results Matter, features on highlights from the CPAN Program, successes and lessons learned, and reflections from Healthcare Georgia Foundation.

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The Logic Behind Logic Models: A Brief Guide

Whether your organization’s programs are large or small, simple or complex, short-term or long-term, they probably share some common elements. A logic model depicts these relationships in a logical order and can be used in many ways, including: strategic planning, program design/planning, assumption testing, program implementation monitoring, results evaluation, and communicating with stakeholders.

This publication describes the purpose, components, and variations of basic logic models with examples.

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Evaluation Resource Center Overview

Healthcare Georgia Foundation believes strongly in the benefits of evaluation: that all organizations should understand their work and why it matters. Evaluation gives health nonprofits the information they need to improve their organizations and programs, ultimately benefitting the individuals, families and communities they serve. This publication describes the purpose and services offered by the ERC.

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