Highlights and Lessons Learned: Evaluating 2017 at Woods Fund Chicago

At Woods Fund Chicago, we look forward to our annual learning evaluation process as an opportunity to capture insights from and reflect on the previous year of grantee activity. Each year, we learn more ways that grantees continue to evolve their approach to fighting for economic and racial justice. Not surprisingly, change is a constant—our grantees are always anticipating and responding to the shifting needs of their communities and political environment.

In addition to using evaluation as a feedback loop to guide our work at Woods Fund, we believe there is power in sharing our learnings with others. In that spirit, below are highlights from our 2017 evaluation process, which we hope offers some useful food for thought for the broader community of systems change organizations and funders.

In 2017, Woods Fund continued to utilize our evaluation framework we adopted in 2014, after a comprehensive update that involved a national foundation scan, development of learning and evaluation principles, and engagement from a voluntary grantee committee. Our final report includes grantee reflections on three key topics:

• What were some significant accomplishments and outcomes of the year?

• What were some key lessons learned from the year?

• How can Woods Fund help advance the work and learning of its grantees?

Significant accomplishments and outcomes

As always, Woods Fund grantees stayed true to the mission of developing grassroots leadership, lifting up community-identified problems and solutions, and focusing on the long game. The political environment in 2017 challenged grantees to balance two complementary approaches: thinking proactively about long-term progress, while also holding ground on many basic human rights.

In 2017, grantee efforts led to meaningful local and statewide wins on a range of issues, including criminal justice reform, worker rights, and government accountability. For example, grantees fought to decrease pretrial incarceration due to lack of legal representation and unaffordable monetary bail, pushing for local bail reform that led to a record-low inmate count in Cook County Jail. Other wins included passage of the Responsible Job Creation Act, which attempts to regulate the growing temporary staffing industry and protect workers and the successful on-time passage of a Illinois state budget. Grantees also advocated for the successful passage of the Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act, which ties school funding to the cost of implementing best practices that research shows enhance student classroom achievement.

Grantees continue to strategically build cross-sector coalitions and alliances. For example, immigrant rights and criminal justice reform coalitions successfully advocated for Welcoming City ordinances and the TRUST Act, strengthening protections for immigrants across the state. Coalitions like the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability and the Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability continued to push for community oversight and engagement on issues of police misconduct.

Key lessons learned

Grantees identified a number of lessons learned in 2017. Many everyday priorities have taken on new urgency in the current political climate, including further engaging in and strengthening coalitions and collaborations, investing in capacity building, and developing legislative and institutional champions. Grantees also stressed importance of ongoing base building and leadership development among those most impacted by economic and racial inequity.

In addition to confirming previous lessons learned, grantees also identified two emerging lessons that may become more relevant in coming years. First, reflecting increasing suburban poverty levels and advocacy needs, several grantees exhibited an increased focus on expanding their geographic strategy and target areas beyond Chicago. Many key issues cannot be won without building statewide power, including strengthening relationships with community organizations in suburban Chicago and urban areas around Illinois.

Second, grantees identified the need to better navigate intra-coalition and intra-organization conflict. Unclear expectations and collective norms can fray internal dynamics and erode trust, especially in times of urgency and tension. Movements choosing between challenging the analysis or actions of partners or maintaining internal cohesion face a difficult but crucial balancing act.

How can Woods Fund help?

Woods Fund was encouraged to see the many ways that we currently support grantees, as well suggestions for how we can continue to improve our support. Similar to previous years, grantees identified Woods Fund as a valuable convener and connector between grantees, systems stakeholders, and other like-minded organizations. Grantees would also like the foundation to support their relationship-building with other potential funders and provide additional capacity building resources and opportunities. Finally, a newly emerging theme points to Woods Fund’s role as a thought leader and bold voice for systemic change and racial equity in the philanthropic sector.

Moving forward, Woods Fund will work to fold these evaluation insights into our grantmaking approach as we continue to evolve alongside the work of our grantees.

Hina Mahmood, Lead Program Officer and Shining Li, Graduate Student Intern, School of Social Service Administration