New Report: Evaluating Social Innovation

(3BL Media) August 14, 2012 - For decades, the philanthropic sector has been experimenting with innovative grantmaking in the hopes of triggering significant and sustainable change. A new report, "Evaluating Social Innovation," developed by FSG and the Center for Evaluation Innovation, calls on philanthropists to re-envision the role, purpose, and processes of evaluation so that social innovations have a better chance of achieving their goals.

Authors Hallie Preskill and Tanya Beer examine a new approach to evaluating social innovation known as "developmental evaluation," which informs and supports innovation and adaptation through evaluative questions, evaluation logic, and data.

The report suggests when to use developmental evaluation, describes conditions for successfully implementing this approach, and offers insights from funders and evaluators who have tested developmental evaluation.

Click here to access the full report.

For an example of developmental evaluation in action, watch FSG's Knight Foundation Client Video where Mayur Patel, VP of Strategy and Assessment at Knight Foundation discusses working with FSG on a developmental evaluation of their Community News and Information project.

Please share your feedback with us at info@fsg.org.

About FSG
FSG is a nonprofit consulting firm specializing in research, strategy, and  evaluation, founded in 2000 as Foundation Strategy Group. Today, FSG  works across all sectors in every region of the globe – partnering with corporations, nonprofits, foundations and governments – to develop more effective solutions to the world's most challenging  issues. FSG helps organizations, individually and collectively, improve society and business by discovering better ways to solve social problems. For more information on FSG, visit www.fsg.org.