Dear Colleagues,
At this time of year when we step back to watch the leaves turning color, we also have the opportunity to step back from our work and reflect on how the individual pieces fit into a broader circle of learning. As we seize this opportunity here at BTW, we want to share with you some of our recent work to inform change with both new and long-term clients.
Our fall issue features an interview with our longtime partner Pacific Community Ventures on its social returns evaluation work with BTW, and serves as an excellent example of how an organization has used outcome measures to transform itself. I’m also excited about a new publication we’re featuring, Wired for Change: Investing in Collaborative Technology, a useful reference for anyone who is designing, funding or supporting collaborative technology efforts. And, finally, we also welcome several new clients.
As you go about your work, we wish you a season full of learning and reflection.
- Ellen Irie, Managing Partner
Client Voices
Partners in Measuring Social Return on Investment
“Seven years ago we knew we wanted to measure the social return on our investments, but we weren’t sure how to go about doing it. Today, measuring social returns alongside financial returns is in our organizational DNA, and BTW played a big role in this.”
- Pete November, Managing Director, Pacific Community Ventures
Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) provides capital and resources to small, high-growth businesses that bring jobs and other economic gains to low/moderate income (LMI) communities in California. PCV employs a hybrid business model, making equity investments in portfolio companies, while also providing business advising and leadership workshops that increase the capacity of these businesses to achieve and manage growth and provide quality jobs. In addition, PCV works with the companies in its portfolio to deliver asset building and financial literacy programs that help low-income employees maximize their retained income, build assets and join the financial mainstream.
To be successful from the outset, PCV knew it needed to satisfy a double bottom line: 1) Make money for investors and 2) Help businesses create and provide quality jobs. Measuring financial returns was straightforward, but to determine whether or not its portfolio businesses were providing quality jobs for residents of California’s LMI communities, PCV needed to develop a framework for measuring social outcomes.
Enter BTW informing change. As experts in using evaluation and analysis to inform change, BTW partnered with PCV, beginning in 2000, to design and implement an approach for measuring social returns. In partnership, PCV and BTW mined three critical questions:
- What are the attributes of job quality and economic self-sufficiency?
- How can social return data be collected in an achievable, yet rigorous, manner?
- Is PCV getting the right kind of social returns on its investments?
Working closely with the PCV team, BTW systematically collected annual data for measuring relevant employment and job quality indicators, through employer surveys and quarterly employment reports. Interpreted in a collaborative process, these outcome data informed changes at PCV that allowed it to execute on its mission with ever increasing success. “Equipped with evaluation data and joint analysis,” says November, “we are confident that PCV is providing important benefits to residents in LMI communities of California.”
Through its seven-year partnership with BTW, PCV has acquired the internal expertise and capacity to conduct most of its social return evaluation in-house. In addition, PCV has developed deep expertise in evaluating the social returns on private equity investments, and now has its own successful business evaluating the community outcomes of private equity investments made by institutional investors. Ellen Irie, BTW Managing Partner, considers it an indicator of success that BTW’s deep measurement work has contributed so significantly to PCV’s intellectual and organizational capacity. And the data speak for themselves: investing equity and human capital in underserved markets makes for good economic development.
Pete November is Managing Director of Pacific Community Ventures. The BTW evaluation team is led by Ellen Irie, and includes Rayna Caplan and Karissa Yee.
Partners in Articulating a Theory of Change
Why is it so important to develop a theory of change? Having recently completed a theory of change under the guidance of BTW, Jim Joseph Foundation’s Executive Director reflects on the importance of articulating one before conducting an evaluation effort.
New Clients, New Partners
Latino Issues Forum
The Latino Issues Forum’s (LIF) Health and Education Initiatives aim to increase access to quality health care and education for Latinos in California. To establish a road map for informing this change, LIF is engaging the services of BTW to articulate a theory of change. Through an interactive process, BTW and LIF will identify specific outcomes and corollary strategies for logically achieving its intended results. The theory of change product will then guide the design of an evaluation plan and data collection tools for measuring the short and long-term results.
New Door Ventures
New Door Ventures (NDV) helps at-risk youth prepare for work and life through job training and community building. To align theory with practice, NDV is engaging the services of BTW to articulate its organizational theory of change and then develop an outcomes measurement system, appropriately scaled to NDV's capacity. At the end of this three-phase process, NDV staff will not only have a logical roadmap and evaluation plan, but also the skills to pilot test and implement the evaluation.
Women’s Foundation of California
BTW is partnering with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to design and conduct an evaluation of the Women’s Foundation of California’s Reproductive Justice and Sexual Rights Program. The Program incorporates strategic grantmaking, policy advocacy, capacity building and technical assistance so organizations, leaders and advocates can protect and strengthen reproductive rights and access to care for women and girls from low-income communities of color in California. The BTW evaluation and reflection process will help both foundations understand the value of their investments to date, and make programmatic enhancements.
New Publications
Do you design, fund or support collaborative technology efforts? If so, consider reading BTW’s most recent publication: Wired for Change: Investing in Collaborative Technology. Highlighting evaluation findings of The California Endowment’s and Tides’s Community Clinics Initiative, the report also identifies success criteria that will be of particular interest to funders, nonprofit leaders and technical assistance providers.
What’s New Archive
