Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation September 2020 STRONGER HUMAN RESOURCESLONG-TERM SUPPORT EQUITABLE NETWORK PARTNERSHIPS INSTITUTIONAL COMMITMENT FLEXIBILITY STRATEGIC THINKING/COHERENCE © 2020 NIRAS Sweden AB Published under a Creative Commons License Published in digital format by NIRAS Sweden AB Box 70375 107 24 Stockholm [email protected] https://www.niras.se/ Graphic design by Green Ink Design adjusted for accessibility by Accessible PDF Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation To the memory of Peter da Costa Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation CONTENTS 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................... 1 2. The Developmental Evaluation: Interim key findings and recommendations ............................ 3 2.1 Key findings ............................................................................................................................................................................................3 2.2 Key recommendations for BUILD ..........................................................................................................................................5 3. What do we know about the Learning Questions? ............................................................................... 7 3.1 Have the BUILD components reflected the underlying principles? ..........................................................7 3.2 In which ways are the grantees’ organizations institutionally stronger now? .................................15 3.3 How does the BUILD approach contribute to networks? .................................................................................31 3.4 In which ways has BUILD contributed to advances in social justice? ....................................................35 4. Lessons learned and recommendations ..................................................................................................43 4.1 Lessons learned .................................................................................................................................................................................43 4.2 Recommendations .........................................................................................................................................................................45 Annexes ....................................................................................................................................................................47 Annex A. Methodological note ........................................................................................................................ 48 Annex B. Towards the final wave of the Developmental Evaluation ..................................................51 Annex C. Case studies.......................................................................................................................................... 52 Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation 1. INTRODUCTION BUILD’s goals are to strengthen the long-term capacity and sustainability of social justice organizations around the world so that they can more effectively achieve their core missions and to reduce inequality in all its forms. In February 2018, the Ford Foundation commissioned a Developmental Evaluation to assess whether and how BUILD is achieving these goals. The Evaluation aims to foster understanding within the Ford Foundation and throughout the field of philanthropy about how BUILD can advance social justice. A multidisciplinary and multinational team was engaged by NIRAS to undertake the task. This Interim Report, which refers to the Evaluation’s first phase of data collection, summarizes the initial mid-term findings of the Evaluation, which will continue into 2021. Its purpose is to provide evidence and analysis to support real-time learning for the current iteration of the BUILD program and for the design of its second iteration (referred to as, BUILD 2.0). A modest adjustment has been made to the original purpose, which was to provide a reference point for analyzing the ‘distance travelled’ of the grantees that have been employing their BUILD support since the start of their respective grants. Given the tumultuous events that took place during the first half of 2020, the Evaluation Team has repurposed this Interim Report as a point of departure for learning about and understanding grantees’ resilience and reassessment of the ‘direction they need to travel’ during the remainder of the BUILD program and afterwards. The Evaluation’s mid-term findings are analyzed through the lens of the four Learning Questions that have guided the inquiry. 1. Has BUILD been organized and implemented optimally to achieve the desired impacts? 2. How has BUILD strengthened grantees? 3. Did BUILD impact grantees’ roles in leading or participating in networks in a way that strengthened those networks? 4. Does strengthening key institutions and networks advance (or consolidate past advances in) social justice? Findings are the product of a contextually framed analysis of the contributions that BUILD has made to ongoing change in the grantee institutions and their mission impacts1. The following data sources were used in the analysis: → Seven case studies that looked into selected types of organizations and/or key issues, based on data collected via visits and interviews with 56 grantees (the large majority face-to-face, but some partially or entirely virtually). → A set of standard questions asked of the 56 grantees for comparative analysis. → An online survey completed by 136 grantees about their uses of the BUILD grant, its effects on institutional strengthening and on mission impact, and grantees’ experience with BUILD components. 1 A detailed description of the methods is provided in Annex A. Throughout this Report, the Evaluation Team has tried to quantify, where meaningful, the prevalence of responses so as to give an impression of whether or not they constitute trends. However, in the Team’s far ranging conversations with grantees some topics have arisen in a variety of ways that make quantification difficult and potentially misleading. For that reason, certain references are more undefined, such as “some.” 1. Introduction 1 Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation The Interim Report seeks to inform the BUILD team and grantees according to their interest—not only the 56 grantee organizations that actively participated in the first wave of the developmental evaluation, but also others beyond those. Secondary audiences for the Interim Report include other Ford Foundation staff and the Board, and potentially other philanthropies. It is recognized, however, that the Report’s level of detail may not be of direct interest to these audiences. The Evaluation Team therefore recommends that it be repackaged by BUILD and relevant Ford offices for broader dissemination as deemed appropriate. The Interim Report provides timely knowledge for the BUILD team to inform and stimulate conversations with these secondary audiences. While the Report’s design reflects the need to facilitate those processes, the primary responsibility for promoting this learning will lie with the BUILD team and the Ford Foundation’s Offices of Strategy and Learning and of Communications. The Evaluation Team is prepared to participate in relevant learning fora as required. The Report has been developed through a process of analyzing, triangulating and broadly discussing the findings from the different data sources within the Evaluation Team, together with the BUILD team and with the grantees who were visited during data collection. The case studies (see Annex C) were authored by different team members and have played a central part in the analysis. This data is reflected extensively and directly in the Report. Most of the dialogue with the BUILD team was undertaken in relation to feedback on the case studies and also in the process of developing a briefing note for the Ford Foundation Board, where the Evaluation Team worked together to synthesize findings and analyses. The Interim Report was produced by the Evaluation Team (Maggie Bangser, Raphaëlle Bisiaux, Anthony Boateng, Ian Christoplos, Ron Dwyer-Voss, Flor Enghel, Susana Morales and Emelie Pelby, ), with Ian Christoplos as the lead author and Flor Enghel providing analytical and editorial guidance. 1. Introduction 2 Interim Report BUILD Developmental Evaluation 2. THE DEVELOPMENTAL EVALUATION: INTERIM KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This section highlights the key findings and recommendations arising from the triangulation of the evaluation’s combined data set introduced in page 1 (i.e., the case studies, the standard questions, and the survey). These findings are analyzed through the lens of the four Learning Questions that have guided the inquiry in Section 3. The ensuing lessons learned, and recommendations are presented in Section 4. 2.1 KEY FINDINGS Has BUILD been organized and implemented optimally to achieve the desired impacts? → The BUILD approach is characterized by built-in synergies among flexibility, long-term timeframes, and ring-fenced commitments to institutional strengthening, which enable grantees to work more effectively towards mission achievement. That grantees are firmly ‘in the driver’s seat’ in determining what BUILD means to them is directly linked to the flexibility that allows them to strategize and act accordingly. → BUILD has often contributed to