Positive Women’s Network – USA

Positive Women’s Network – USA

Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN – USA) strengthens the strategic power of women living with HIV in the United States by developing a leadership pipeline and policy agenda grounded in social justice and human rights. Korwin Consulting partnered with PWN – USA to support the development of an organizational evaluation framework and advocacy evaluation process. We facilitated a benchmark identification process and provided continued coaching as they developed an evaluation framework to accompany their strategic plan and build overall organizational evaluation capacity.

William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation established its Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative in order to support two regional foundations — the Central Valley Community Foundation, based in Fresno and working in communities in California’s Central Valley, and the Latino Community Foundation, based in San Francisco, supporting organizations led by and working with Latino communities in the Central Valley and San Francisco Bay Area.

After eight years of funding an array of teen pregnancy prevention efforts in the Bay Area and Central Valley, the Foundation contracted with Korwin Consulting: (1) to conduct a retrospective analysis at the community and program level to identify what, if anything, has changed in the teen pregnancy prevention landscape in the geographies served, and (2) informed by that analysis, to develop a set of questions that sub-grantees can use to measure knowledge, attitude, and practice outcomes of their programs going forward.

Nuestro Texas

The Nuestro Texas campaign was developed by the Center for Reproductive Rights and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health in response to severe limitations in access to reproductive health care for low-income and immigrant women in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. One of the poorest regions in the U.S. and home to a large population of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinos, the Valley has some of the most profound barriers to health care in the country. It also has a highly organized network of powerful women — “Las Poderosas” (“the powerful women”) — fighting for their human right to reproductive health care. Launched in 2013, Nuestro Texas supported the women of the Valley as they demanded local, state, and federal policies that would promote their reproductive health and support them in building strong and healthy families and communities. Although the campaign officially ended in the late spring of 2016, activists in the Valley continue to use the Nuestro Texas strategies, publications, and messaging in their ongoing struggle for better reproductive health care access.

Korwin Consulting used a mixed methods approach to evaluate the structure and strategies of Nuestro Texas. Our analysis included a review of communications and reports related to the goals, development, and implementation of the campaign; interviews with partner and ally organization staff members, policy makers, and human rights experts who have heard the women of the Valley talk about the impact that the lack of health care access had on them and their community; interviews and focus groups with Nuestro Texas activists; and an examination of media coverage of the campaign. In addition to this in-depth evaluation, Korwin Consulting developed a concise case study report making the case for applying an international human rights framework to other progressive grassroots social justice campaigns in the U.S.

Download the Nuestro Texas report here.

Women’s Funding Network

Through a network of more than 120 women’s funds and foundations, The Women’s Funding Network (WFN) provides gender justice leaders and advocates with a variety of tools to help them succeed—from research and education, to strategic-led initiatives and events, to advocacy and unifying a collective, amplified voice. Korwin Consulting has worked on several projects with WFN over the years. Most recently, we were integral to the process and evaluation of Women’s Economic Mobility Hubs (WEMH) (2020 – 2021), an initiative in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that invested in 9 U.S.-based women’s funds and foundations implementing place-based models to increase economic mobility for women and gender expansive people and their families. We assisted cohort members in identifying joint metrics to track collective progress and impacts; provided evaluation coaching with the executive and program staff of individual members; and developed interim and final reports and presentations on the achievements, challenges, and lessons gained through this initiative.

Before this, we conducted an evaluation of WFN’s Two-Generation Policy Advocacy Cohort (2017 – 2019), providing evaluation coaching, developing a policy advocacy evaluation webinar for this learning cohort of women’s foundations from across the country, and conducting a mixed methods evaluation about cohort members’ experiences, motivations, and policy outcomes from their individual and collective efforts.

Korwin Consulting also worked as a strategic evaluation partner in WFN’s Partnership for Women’s Prosperity (PWP) — a partnership of U.S. women’s foundations working to help economically vulnerable women and girls gain economic security through education, job training, and employment opportunities — from 2012 through the initiative’s sunset in 2017. Korwin Consulting’s evaluation of PWP revealed that using a systems change framework, which includes emphases on five key approaches — effective programming, creating strong and effective linkages, improving the political environment, developing a strong infrastructure, and taking efforts to scale — can successfully position both local programs and national initiatives to effect change on key social issues.

Download the Partnership for Women’s Prosperity Systems Change Framework report here.

 

Additional projects with WFN include working with the WFN Fund for Shared Insight initiative, which highlighted best practices women’s foundations are using to increase their openness and transparency.

Groundswell Fund

Groundswell Fund supports a stronger, more effective U.S. movement for reproductive justice (RJ) by mobilizing new funding and capacity-building resources for grassroots organizing and policy change efforts led by women of color, low-income women, and transgender people. Our work to evaluate the impact that Groundswell’s RJ grantees are having on policy, base building, public opinion, and the framing of reproductive health and rights in the U.S. provides information and understanding that help Groundswell and its grantees build the effectiveness and sustainability of the RJ movement.

Korwin Consulting has worked with Groundswell Fund since 2008, evaluating its support for RJ through the Catalyst Fund and, later, other funding initiatives. We have used a combination of interviews, surveys, focus groups, evaluation coaching, and training and have participated in convenings with national and local philanthropic partners and women of color-led RJ organizations hosted by Groundswell. In 2014, we worked with Groundswell staff, grantees, and other stakeholders to design a new online evaluation survey for RJ grantees that would best capture data and stories related to power-building, accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned.

We have also partnered with Groundswell Fund to evaluate Groundswell’s Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) program, which provides technical support to RJ organizations using an innovative approach that blends community organizing and voter engagement in a sustained way to boost the scale and power of grassroots organizations to win systems change. Currently, Korwin Consulting is collaborating with staff on developing evaluation tools and processes that will minimize grantees’ reporting burden for Groundswell Fund’s Liberation Fund, which supports organizations led by prominent women of color and transgender people of color engaging in effective grassroots organizing across social justice sectors.

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Institute) builds Latinas’ power to guarantee the fundamental human right to reproductive health, dignity and justice. Collaborating closely with Latina Institute staff, Korwin Consulting is helping the organization better understand its internal capacity, learn about the impact of its culture change and activism efforts, share its accomplishments with constituents and funders, and inform future program planning. From 2015-2019, we analyzed the organization’s current evaluation strategies, developed an evaluation framework, surveyed Latina Institute staff and community activists, and conducted focus groups with its Local Area Network activists in Florida and Texas, bringing greater clarity about their engagement, satisfaction, and capacity to build community power.

All* Above All

All* Above All brings together leaders from the reproductive rights and justice field—including women’s health, legal defense, youth, and faith-based groups, as well as national reproductive health and rights networks—to catalyze a long-term movement led by and centered around women of color and young women to ensure abortion access for all. In 2013/14 Korwin Consulting conducted key stakeholder interviews and reviewed materials, media, and online campaigns to learn what is innovative and sustainable about All* Above All and what they believe needs to be strengthened for the coalition to achieve its goal. We developed a “success narrative report” which we presented at a coalition meeting to help members understand their joint progress and impacts to date at national, state, and local levels. In 2015, we developed and presented case studies of All* Above All’s state and local labs to illustrate impact, challenges, and lessons learned.

Third Wave Foundation

Third Wave Foundation is a feminist, activist foundation that works nationally to support young women, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth ages 15 to 30 working for gender, racial, economic, and social justice in grassroots efforts. Since its inception in 1996, Third Wave has funded and supported numerous youth-led social justice organizations and individual activists through grants, scholarships, and other technical assistance. Through board, staff, funder, and grant partner interviews and surveys and a review of relevant materials, Korwin Consulting evaluated Third Wave’s Reproductive Health and Justice Initiative in order to deepen Third Wave’s understanding of its impact on reproductive justice organizations and the reproductive justice movement, as a whole.

New York Women’s Foundation

The New York Women’s Foundation invests in women (cis and trans) and non-binary community leaders and solutions that advance the economic security, safety, and health of the most overlooked women. It unites cross-cultural alliances that ignite action and build economic, gender, and racial justice for families across New York City and State. Korwin Consulting partners with The Foundation on several initiatives and on deepening its own internal culture of strategic learning and evaluation. Past Korwin Consulting projects included helping The Foundation’s reproductive justice grantee partners measure their own impact by offering group training, one-on-one evaluation coaching, development of an Advocacy Evaluation Resource Guide, and analysis of data submitted in the Women’s Funding Network’s Making the Case online evaluation tool.

Current and ongoing projects include collaborating with Foundation staff and grantee partners to develop and refine theories of change, grant report tools and processes, and conduct group interviews to inform planning and practices related to several initiatives and strategies. Among them are: The Justice Fund, a collaborative grantmaking and philanthropic mobilization effort which aims to dismantle mass incarceration in New York City; The NYC Fund for Girls & Young Women of Color, a collaborative fund to increase sustained investments for girls and young women of color—inclusive of transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary (TGNCNB) youth—to succeed and thrive; The Brooklyn Economic Justice Project, which supports and invests in organizations working collectively to interrupt gentrification and catalyze economic strength and liberation in four Brooklyn neighborhoods; and The Foundation’s Early Investment strategy, which provides funding and capacity building opportunities for nascent organizations to grow and thrive as they develop and implement strategies with their communities to build gender, racial, and other justice movements.

We are also working with the foundation to engage in deeper reflection and planning to inform its day-to-day grantmaking and community engagement strategies and reach the goals outlined in its strategic plan.

 

New Mexico Community Foundation

The New Mexico Community Foundation Women Building Community Fund exists to support New Mexico women and girls in diverse rural, urban, and immigrant communities. The Women Building Community Fund catalyzes community change by making strategic grants and building permanent resources for New Mexico’s women and girls. The New Mexico Community Foundation joined Groundswell’s Catalyst Fund as a grantmaking partner and awarded grants and technical assistance to grantees advancing a reproductive justice agenda. Korwin Consulting evaluated grantees’ strategies, activities, and progress.