Building Evidence to Strengthen Nonprofit Programming [aecf.org]

By The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Image: screenshot from article, September 12, 2024

Com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grams are crit­i­cal to the com­mu­ni­ties they serve. Often led by peers from the same cul­tur­al back­ground, they pro­vide acces­si­ble ser­vices to youth, espe­cial­ly chil­dren of col­or. This shared con­nec­tion fos­ters trust, enables tai­lored approach­es and ensures pro­grams effec­tive­ly meet needs.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, too many of these orga­ni­za­tions oper­ate on razor-thin bud­gets, with few­er assets and less access to well-resourced net­works. This ham­pers their access to data and evi­dence tools that help refine, improve and expand pro­gram­ming crit­i­cal to the peo­ple they serve.

A strat­e­gy helps com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grams around the coun­try improve their col­lec­tion and use of data to bet­ter serve their com­mu­ni­ties. It is the sub­ject of a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion: Build­ing Evi­dence to Advance Equi­ty.

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