In an environment that is crowded with generic organizational effectiveness assessment tools and frameworks, how can we design a rigorous learning and assessment system that reflects a funder’s values and resonates with both the foundation and its grantees? During this session, a program officer and an evaluator will tell their story about how they worked together to create a system designed to generate meaningful information about organizational effectiveness—a key measure for a foundation whose unrestricted grants focus on supporting nonprofits to more effectively address the needs of low-income and underserved communities. We will walk participants through the critical steps of our design process—arriving at a clear sense of the foundation’s priorities, gaining board and staff support, engaging in ongoing discussions with program staff and grantees, and conducting multiple rounds of piloting and refining—and explain how early findings are already starting to benefit a range of stakeholders.#AEA2016Conference #Eval16 #2016Conference