Our Deliberate Strategy is developed and continually refined by learning through evaluation and applied research. The majority of the Deliberate Strategy grants have a percentage of their budget, at times up to 10 percent, dedicated to evaluation conducted by an independent contractor. This approach is part of the Deliberate strategy to build the capacity of its grantee-partner organizations. Evaluators assist grantee-partners to define measurable outcomes, articulate logic models, design data collection instruments, and ultimately make sense of findings so that future activities are more likely to achieve successful outcomes. All of this leads to increased sustainability and impact for programs and grantee-partners. The degree to which organizations transition to doing this work internally is a positive and desirable outcome for the Foundation. From these individual evaluations, the grantmaking team learns alongside our grantee-partners, exploring questions such as whether the desired outcomes were achieved and whether changes to a grantee-partner’s programming or organization might yield better outcomes in the future.
Cross-portfolio evaluation involves several grantee-partners who are working toward similar outcomes or with similar populations or in similar settings. The goal is to build the field and to answer questions that the Foundation asks about its investments, grantmaking strategies, and the target audiences. Through this work, we aim to evaluate and ask questions about entire portions of the Deliberate strategy grantmaking portfolio for the purpose of informing our practice of philanthropy, the audiences who participate in Jewish life through communal organizations, how and what we deem to be successful, whether or not our principles are put into action, and more. These studies explore questions such as 1) the extent to which cohorts or sets of grants help the Foundation achieve our goals, 2) how young Jews find connection, meaning, and purpose through Jewish learning experiences we support, and 3) what the best measures are for our desired outcomes.
The Deliberate team also invests in applied research to support the field, our grantee-partners and our own decision-making. Research topics and methodologies range depending on the learning questions. The Deliberate strategy seeks to partner with other funders, researchers, and organizations to support the pursuit of learning and to provide a solid base of knowledge for the field.
Commissioning, synthesizing and running experiments are key pillars of the Foundation’s Emergent Strategy explorations and pursuits of new ideas and opportunities are informed by data and collected research insights. The research conducted and collected focuses broadly on audiences, cultural trends, and instructional precedents.
For the Emergent Strategy, understanding the target audience of the majority of young North American Jews who do not connect with mainstream Jewish life is both critical and pioneering work. Almost all prior Jewish communal studies on audiences primarily focused on the attitudes, needs, and perspectives of those who are “showing up.” Very little is known about the needs, wants, and perspectives of majority populations who remain outside of Jewish communal life. Employing principles of human centered design, ethnographic studies, surveys, and other research tools, we are identifying powerful insights and patterns to better understand this historically elusive demographic.
Utilizing varied research approaches, Emergent research and experimentation focuses on ongoing, salient questions that inform the direction and prioritization of investments and projects. This explorative approach often leads to additional questions and hypotheses worthy of additional testing and examination. These efforts are designed to:
As the Emergent team commissions and conducts research and experimentation, we capture insights and learnings that guide strategy and inspire new areas of exploration. In addition to informing internal operations, and similar to the Deliberate team, the Emergent team seeks to share findings with the broader field.
To dive deeper into our Grant Evaluations, go to the Learning & Resources section.
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