Center for Health Care Strategies, Inc.

Many grantees, especially smaller, non-academic organizations, often lack evaluation experience but are required to submit evaluation plans to foundations that include outcome measures and monitoring activities.

Based on the final reports from its early grantees, the New York Health Foundation (NYHealth) concluded that grantees would benefit from formal technical assistance in the area of evaluation. Specifically, staff members felt that grantees would benefit from learning how to create a program logic model; develop a related set of process and outcome measures; and collect and analyze the necessary data. NYHealth awarded a grant to the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) to implement this technical assistance to Foundation grantees. This grant was awarded in two phases.

Grantees from smaller, nonacademic organizations often lack experience in conducting and implementing program evaluations that are critical to effectively executing and sustaining projects. In Phase 2, CHCS will conduct many of the same activities it did under the first phase for new NYHealth grantees. Phase 2 has also been adjusted and improved to reflect the feedback received in the initial project period. In particular, these improvements will ensure that grantees receive the right training at the right point in the lifespan of the project, organize the workshops to be smaller and more interactive, and add an element of evaluation technical assistance for grant applicants to the Foundation.