Articles

Most nonprofits, schools and youth-serving organizations do not have a history of systematically using data to inform and improve practice. We have learned that it takes a concerted and sustained effort to create the conditions to support a culture of data use in organizations and intentional support for staff to become effective users of data.

This article offers the perspective that financial stability is a necessary but insufficient condition for organizational sustainability: other factors are essential for long-term stability and impact. Well-regarded models of sustainability go beyond effective management and engaged boards to include dimensions such as adaptive capacity, innovation, and other practices. In short, sustainability is the result of a complex interplay of many interdependent practices, behaviors, and decisions. This article synthesizes the dominant characterizations and features of sustainability and presents several common dimensions.

In 2021, St. David’s Foundation began to think differently about our approach to rural funding. Building on the Thriving Rural Communities strategy to advance racial and health equity, we focused on fostering new and deeper relationships with our rural and small-town neighbors. In addition, we invested in new types of supports for community capacity building and experimented with a form of participatory grant making, Shared Gifting, that allows community members to decide what the most urgent funding needs are, rather than the funders or local decision makers.

In partnership with the residents of Bastrop County through Network Weaving, a community engagement and leadership development approach, residents are beginning to develop new relationships to catalyze and leverage community strengths to empower residents to transform their community in ways that improve the conditions in which people live, work, and play.

This report describes the results of an external impact evaluation of the New Mexico Math‐Science Partnerships (MSP) program after two years of implementation. The results of analyses of New Mexico state mathematics assessment scores, teacher professional development logs, content assessments, and student and teacher background and demographic information revealed statistically significant but practically non‐significant improvements in latent growth trajectories of middle school students’ mathematics achievement after two years of exposure to teachers participating in the MSP program.

This article discusses the REACH Healthcare Foundation’s original approach to their Rural Health Initiative and how it adjusted that approach in response to its rural partners’ experiences. It reflects on the challenges encountered in rooting the four conditions and capacities of community change and innovation – supports for implementation; foundational structures; skills and processes; and community engagement – into the work of community health improvement.

This brief describes an unfolding learning journey intended to strengthen social connection, resident voice, and agency to address inequities in rural health and well-being. Along the way, we have come to realize the important lessons for each of our institutions and ways in which we are better off for having taken this approach to our work.

The purposes of this evaluation were to determine if a school-based School-to- Entrepreneurship program impacts key knowledge and behavioral outcomes associated with entrepreneurial thinking and planning in middle-school aged youth participants, and to synthesize the findings across two years of evaluation to determine if Kauffman’s investment in STE programming strengthens entrepreneurial thinking and action in youth.

This report is the first publication about an ongoing, large-scale evaluation of a District-wide, comprehensive school reform initiative underway in Kansas City, Kansas called First Things First (FTF). The initiative is directed and implemented by a partnership of three organizations: the Kansas City, Kansas School District; the Institute for Research and Reform in Education – developer of the FTF framework and primary technical assistance provider to the District; and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation – FTF’s major private supporter. The FTF model is an example of the newer breed of comprehensive reform, called “theory of change” initiatives, which took shape in the 1990s as a promising approach to systems change. The theory of change approach entails specifying and sequencing each step required to achieve the desired systemic outcomes, which allows for early, intermediate and long-term progress and outcomes to be identified and monitored over the course of a reform.

First Things First (FTF) is an education reform initiative that aims to raise the academic performance of all students to levels required for post‐secondary education and high‐quality employment without remediation. Developed by the Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE) in 1996, FTF strives to create meaningful change for all students –particularly young people in low‐income communities whom public education is failing. The FTF framework provides a set of expectations and articulates the ways in which these expectations can be met by schools and districts. Over time, the framework has evolved from an abstract theory to a tested set of interlocking processes, strategies and implementation standards aimed at improving critical student outcomes.