Organizations practicing Full Frame Interventions often cite as a barrier the methodology that funders and policy makers expect them to use to evaluate their practice and to measure outcomes. In response to this, FFI has written and presented widely on the topic of evaluation.
Publications
Katya Fels Smyth, (2012, October 9 and 11). The Bear and the Ladle, Parts I and II, [Blog Posts], Markets For Good, Retrieved from http://www.marketsforgood.org/the-bear-and-the-ladle-part-i/ and http://www.marketsforgood.org/the-bear-and-the-ladle-part-ii/
In October 2012, the Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and LiquidNet launched Markets For Good, a monumental effort to catapult the nonprofit sector—funders and those who are funded—into a truly data-driven era. A number of top voices in evaluation, data, and information were interviewed and asked to blog on related topics. FFI’s Founder and CEO, Katya Fels Smyth, was in that group. Her two-part blog poses a critical question: What if the quest for data is moving us further away from the good we intend?”
Smyth, K.F. (2010) Response essay. In Kubish, Anne C., Patricia Auspos, Prudence Brown, and Tom Dewar. Voices from the Field III: Lessons and Challenges from Two Decades of Community Change Efforts (111-115). Washington, D.C.: Aspen Institute.
This essay is part of Chapter 5: Evaluation and learning from community change efforts by Prudence Brown.
A Lot to Lose: A Call to Rethink What Constitutes “Evidence” in Finding Social Interventions that Work (.pdf)
By Katya Fels Smyth and Lisbeth B. Schorr. Harvard Kennedy School of Government Malcom Wiener Center for Social Policy Working Paper Series. January 2009
Response to Government Policy
Focusing on what Works: Federal Fund’s Approach Makes a Misstep
Katya Fels Smyth’s Op-Ed in The Chronicle of Philanthropy about experimental design evaluation and philanthropy.
The Full Frame Initiative played a lead role in providing comments to the federal government on the impact of proposed evaluation standards. These comments were submitted by our ally, Futures without Violence (formerly the Family Violence Prevention Fund).
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