~AEA Public Library

The purpose of this guide is to provide grantmakers who support the nonprofit sector with practical guidance about how to take a more collaborative approach to evaluation. When we use the term grantmaker, we are referring to non-governmental funders that provide financial support to nonprofit groups including United Ways, corporate, public, and private foundations. More specifically, this guide will help grantmaker staff and board to:

• Make the case for why working collaboratively on evaluation is an important investment of time and resources
• Build a learning culture, which is acornerstone to successful collaboration
• Identify the intent of evaluations so that design is driven by a clear purpose and to enhance engagement with stakeholders
• Work collaboratively with grantees and other community stakeholders to identify metrics and measurements that matter
• Create grantee reporting systems and processes that are streamlined and responsive and generate useful information
• Build the evaluation capacity of nonprofit organizations to generate better data and learning and improve performance and impacts
• Share the results of evaluation so that it provides valuable insights to internal grantmaker stakeholders as well as grantees, partners, and the community