Building on earlier dialogues on North/South cooperation that were convened by ForAL (Forging Alliances South and North), ForAL initiated a virtual dialogue which, through an ongoing exchange between funders and civil society groups, facilitated reflection on conceptual and methodological elements in order to strengthen our capacity to evaluate social change in social movement processes.

We hope that the report on that process, attached here and also available in English and Spanish by clicking here, will contribute to constructive attitudes and practices in the relationships between civil society groups, networks and funders in the North and the South.

We intend to continue this dialogue through an online forum, and we invite your participation in order to enrich this process. After reading the report, please share your reflections here.

Finally we would be very grateful for your help in disseminating this report to your contacts, both individual and organizational.

Many thanks,

New blog post about impact evaluation, originally from Stanford Social Innovation Review:
Click Here!

At the recent EFC Conference in Cascais, Portugal, the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace joined with the Bernard van Leer Foundation, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy, European Foundation Centre and Fondazione Cariplo to host a very interactive session on impact assessment and evaluation. As part of the session, we provided substantial background information, which you can find by clicking here.

Summary document by Max Niedzwiecki, PhD on available evaluation resources for assessing the impact of Social Justice Philanthropy.

NCRP released a report called "Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities - Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in Pennsylvania." Thought you might be interested. To see a copy, click here: here.

From AWID

An article for Effect, the journal of the European Foundation Centre, on impact assessment by Lisa Jordan and Barry Knight - as a follow-up to their presentation at the EFC Conference in 2010.

An excellent post on the Bernard van Leer Foundation website by Lisa Jordan on changing how the foundation is thinking about evaluation.

The Global Fund for Community Foundations launched a new report on the state of the global community foundation field. The report, “More than the Poor Cousin?”(attached) draws on data collected through the GFCF’s grantmaking processes and sets out to argue that community foundations may be a missing piece in the international development jigsaw. Join the debate and discussion on our blog.

Paper by Barry Knight given out at the EFC conference in 2010.