ASDC Projects

Post-Katrina Disaster Response Coordination: After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the American Red Cross realized that no single entity has the capacity to comprehensively and effectively respond to the massive human needs and sweeping public demand for service. They engaged a diverse group of community partners in a process to develop a better understanding of roles, responsibilities and the capabilities of individual organizations as well as existing collaborative entities so they can better engage diverse and disenfranchised populations. This partnership committee has begun to develop an action plan to:

ASDC was a participating partner in this effort, and facilitated the development of the action plan for more effective collaborative disaster response to diverse populations. Currently, ASDC is working with the American Red Cross and other community partners to develop a strategy to engage the chief executive officers of organizations active in Katrina and Rita in the cooperative actions of Partners in Disaster Moving Forward and the coordinating board of Partners Active in Disaster, and to generate some Guiding Principles for Working with Community Partners during Disaster. ASDC first became involved in responding to the hurricane disasters of 2005, by setting up a website on community responses to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (http://www.capacitybuilding.net/Katrina/index.htm).

Yes we can! Intermediary and Comprehensive Community Initiative Consultation: ASDC staff assisted the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and their community partners in the design and implementation of the Yes we can! initiative that intends to address the educational and economic development of seven Battle Creek (MI) neighborhoods and the rest of the city through a comprehensive resident participatory process. ASDC managed the Yes we can office and its activities, while also providing training, technical assistance, and support to the ASDC/Yes we can! staff, the foundations, and other organizations in the city. ASDC also focused on building the capacity of community groups in order to help them attain their desired goals. ASDC provided assistance in other ways by facilitating planning sessions, providing recommendations on governance, identifying best practices, and other consultation activities. For more information on the initiative please visit www.wkkf.org/yeswecan.

Capacity Assessment of the Vision Councils, United Way/Community Chest of Cincinnati: The Vision Councils was a strategy used by this United Way to engage local organizations in a collaborative, neighborhood-based process to plan and implement more innovative and responsive program strategies. ASDC conducted a capacity assessment and learning process to help United Way staff and volunteer leaders prepare for supporting this initiative.

Community Development Support Collaborative Evaluation: For three years ASDC evaluated the capacity building efforts of the Community Development Support Collaborative and assisted the Collaborative in building the capacity of its members (funders, grantees, and other partners). ASDC monitored the progress of grantees according to their work plans, evaluating the Collaborative's TA program, and assessed the effectiveness of its operations. ASDC also conducted reflection and learning sessions to help the Collaborative and its grantee learn and plan actions together.

Community IMPACT! Evaluation: ASDC conducted an evaluation of Community IMPACT!'s work and of the role of youth in community building. ASDC helped build the organization's capacity to improve its own learning system and to respond to the needs of the communities it serves. Community IMPACT! is a non-profit organization that works with neighborhood stakeholders to support community service projects that involve people from the community, improve the community, and invest in the community's future. ASDC also assisted Community IMPACT! in developing and implementing an organizational learning plan and provided training and consultation in community organizing.

Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural and Environmental Policy Center's Agriculture Policy Project Evaluation: The purpose of the project, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, was to facilitate local, regional, and national discussions of agricultural and environmental issues; to support local policy development and activities; and to develop a set of long-term national policy recommendations. A series of visioning sessions were used to identify critical policy areas. Policy experts were called on to craft these visions into policy recommendations. The project showed how a local based policy development process can lead to National policy change.

Head Start Community Assessment (Montgomery County, MD): ASDC conducted a community assessment that examined how Head Start-eligible children are cared for while their parents work and/or go to school, the parents' view of their children's educational and social service needs, and the feasibility of service delivery strategies that are currently under consideration to assist Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services in their commitment to continually deliver high quality services. The ASDC team also investigated how to improve outreach to African American, Latino and immigrant groups as well as how to improve the programs "cross-cultural competency." Several methods were used for this assessment including: demographic information analysis, focus groups with caregivers, survey of parents and other caregivers, interviews, and a series of discussions with a group of child care providers.

Kansas City's Promise Evaluation: Sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, this evaluation included building systems for volunteer recruitment, placement, and tracking among volunteer centers in five counties; tracking commitments; Web site and database development; tracking youth development outcomes; interviewing civic leaders and youth; and evaluating local strategies(Read the Report to the Community).

Self Assessment and Organizational Development Guide for Youth Organizing Groups: ASDC was asked by the Funders Collaborative for Youth Organizing to develop a written guide for youth organizing groups that would enable them to strengthen their organizations. The guide was not intended to replace the use of skilled consultants and other resources, but to better prepare these organizations in determining what they needed to do before seeking additional help and to start them on the process of organizational development. This guide was written by ASDC in collaboration with national experts and staff of youth organizing groups. One of the challenges was to make sure that this guide is written in a way that is responsive to the culture, capacity, and vision of these organizations which range in size and sophistication in organizational development. ASDC staff investigated past works with similar intentions, assessed needed and past successes of 34 youth organizing groups, and has "tested" products with potential users.

Sense of Community Monitoring: The Community Partnership for Families (Queen Anne County, MD) is a county government organization responsible for the planning, implementation, and monitoring of programs that support youth, families, and communities. ASDC assisted this partnership to develop their capacity to collect, analysis, and use the Sense of Community Index (SCI, link to description in our Publications) to monitor changes in the sense of community across the county, in specific areas of the county and among specific populations. We analyzed and reported on data for psychometric properties, levels among different populations, and adequacy of sampling. Results were geographically mapped to help facilitate the use of this information for planning. ASDC developed a database to automate future data entry, analysis, and reporting of this annual survey.

School-Community Collaborative Development: With the support of the Fannie Mae Foundation, ASDC facilitated the development and operation of a school-community collaboration at H. G. Woodson High School. This project developed a comprehensive investment plan for Woodson; increased resources available for Woodson students; and increased and strengthened relationships among the Woodson community, businesses, foundations, and community institutions for the good of Woodson students.

Social & Economic Community Development (SECD) Grantmaking Review: ASDC conducted a grant program analysis and a learning process for the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to build the foundation's capacity to support social, economic, and community development initiatives.

Social & Economic Community Development Evaluation Conference: This conference was funded to build the capacity of W. K. Kellogg Foundation grantees to conduct useful evaluations. It brought together 28 grantees interested in social and economic community development and offered them an opportunity to learn about evaluation and how it can be used to strengthen their efforts.

SIRFI Immigrant Integration Initiative: ASDC is conducting the evaluation of The Colorado Trust’s Immigrant Integration Strategy, an outgrowth of an earlier initiative, Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families (SIRFI). ASDC will examine the impact of the strategy on ten Colorado communities from 2004 until 2009. Unlike previous models of assimilation and multiculturalism, The Trust's immigrant integration model recognizes the integration process as bi-directional and requires both the host community and the newcomers to be responsible for making their community a better place for everyone. The evaluation uses a mixed-method approach to answer three questions: 1) How do communities come together to collaborate and support immigrant integration? 2) Did the grantees achieve what they set out to accomplish? and 3) Did the sense of integration among community residents, collaborative members, and project participants increase?

Foreign Born Information and Referral Network (FIRN) at Howard County, MD: ASDC conducted a demographic study of the foreign born groups in Howard County, MD. The different phases of the project included socio-economic review, needs and barriers assessment and communication and presentation. (Read the Report) (Read about the study as covered in the newspaper- The Business Monthly)

Evaluation of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management’s Cultural Competency Initiative: ASDC is designing and implementing the evaluation of the Alliance’s Cultural Competency Initiative. The evaluation process will not only determine the extent to which the initiative achieved its goals, but also generate knowledge about what it takes to increase the cultural competency of nonprofit leaders; at the same time, ASDC will work with the Alliance staff to increase their evaluation capacity.

Montgomery County Collaboration Council on Children, Youth, and Families: ASDC is working with the Montgomery County Collaboration Council on Children, Youth, and Families to identify issues and concerns affecting culturally diverse families and children in the county. The Collaboration Council will use the information to inform its strategy development. As part of the process, ASDC staff interviewed community leaders, advocates, and county staff, and identified existing documentation about the well-being of low-income, African American, and immigrant families in the county. ASDC also helped the Collaboration Council identify and implement strategies for strengthening two communities within the county, as well as strategies for building cross-cultural competence in general.

Building Community Amidst Diversity: ASDC received a grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation, which ASDC has regranted to three communities (“community partners”) that recently experienced an increase in their ethnic/racial diversity. ASDC is collaborating with the selected community partners to develop a strategy to strengthen their community by strengthening relationsihps across racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

American Evaluation Association's Building Diversity Initiative: The purpose of this project is to improve the quality and effectiveness of evaluation by expanding the ethnic and cultural diversity of the evaluation profession and by improving the capacity of evaluators to work across cultures. One of the main efforts is a Minority Fellowship Porgram.ASDC has been working under contract to AEA since 2001.

Community Foundations/Intergroup Relations Learning Process: The objective of this five-year learning process was to enable the national funders (the Charles S. Mott and Ford Foundations) and six community and local foundations participating in the Community Foundation/Intergroup Relations Program to support neighborhood and community projects to improve race and ethnic relations between recent immigrants and longtime residents in the six metropolitan areas. ASDC provided technical assistance, conference planning, and Web-based resources, and conducted the evaluation of these efforts. ASDC worked with Video Action to produce a documentary and a booklet about the role of community foundations in strengthening intergroup relations. (Go to the CF/IR Program)

The Washington Area Partnership for Immigrants is a public/private partnership that promotes and builds on the strengths of the growing immigrant communities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The Partnership provides funding and technical assistance to immigrants to support their efforts to capitalize on available resources and to become full participants in local communities and institutions. The Partnership also serves as a resource for other local efforts that involve immigrants. ASDC has provided the Partnership with capacity building support, including evaluation, since 1997.

Day Laborer's Project: ASDC provided assistance to the Fairfax County Department of Systems Management for Human Services to implement a community learning process to increase understanding of issues related to day labor. As part of the process, ASDC facilitates a learning circle designed to bring stakeholders together to discuss this issue. Stakeholders included, but are not limited to: day laborers, business people, community and civic leaders, service providers, and representatives from public agencies. Through facilitated discussions and an examination of pertinent research regarding promising strategies from other jurisdictions around the country and locally, the learning circle will increase stakeholders' understanding of issues related to day laborer and identify opportunities to utilize resources to strengthen the communities in which we live and work. Based on the information, ASDC provided recommendations on how the county government and the community can best address the day labor issues.

Research on Issues Facing Immigrant Communities: ASDC gathered information for The Community Foundation for the National Capitol Region regarding issues facing immigrant communities in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, the impact of September 11, 2001, and the capacities needed to strengthen the immigrant communities’ ability to address the issues. ASDC interviewed over 50 individuals and conducted seven focus groups in the region.

Valuing Diversity: Building Better Communities Through Change Project: The goal of this project was to enhance the capacity of the psychology profession to assist communities in addressing issues related to diversity. The project had three objectives: (1) to assemble a database of psychology literature and model programs that can assist communities in addressing issues related to diversity; (2) to assist two communities in the adoption and adaptation of model efforts to improve intergroup relations and to increase how diversity is valued; and (3) to disseminate the lessons learned and resources developed through this project to communities across the country, as well as to intermediary organizations, foundations, and government agencies whose mission is to assist communities in improving inter-group relations and promoting diversity. ASDC implemented the project on behalf of the American Psychological Association. Activities included: conducting research, facilitating workshops, helping communities adopt strategies, and conducting an evaluation of the project. (Go to the Valuing Diversity Project)

Evaluation of the Colorado Trust’s Equalities in Health Initiative: This seven-year initiative, which addresses racial disparities in health, will involve almost 30 communities throughout the state of Colorado by 2007. ASDC’s evaluation team is responsible for assessing: 1) changes in cultural competency among the grantees, 2) the influence of cultural competency changes on grantee interventions and short-term outcomes, 3) factors and conditions needed to bring about positive changes in organizational cultural competency, and 4) grantee progress and accomplishments over time.

Drug-Free Communities Support Program National Evaluation: ASDC under a sub-contract to Battelle Institute is providing technical direction and other evaluation services for the National Evaluation of the Drug Free Communities Support Program. The Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Policy Control (ONDCP), sponsors this grant program. ASDC will conduct an evaluation of the 714 substance abuse prevention coalitions. The evaluation will use data provided by grantees and archival data to determine the effectiveness of substance abuse coalitions. ASDC is also responsible for the development of a coalition typology based on the coalition’s stage of development. Additionally, an instrument to classify coalitions based on their stage of development will be developed by ASDC. This is a five-year project.

A Critique of Evaluation Primers: ASDC worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to select and rate 11 primers for evaluation that are commonly used by nonprofits and other organizations. The final product will be used by the Foundation to guide its grantees in their selection of evaluators and evaluation approach and methods given their situation and resources. (Read the Report)

Community Action Grant Program Evaluation of Phase I: ASDC conducted an evaluation of Phase I of the Community Action Grant Program, funded under the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The evaluation evaluated the extent to which Phase 1 grantees are able to: 1) identify an exemplary practice in mental health service delivery or administration; and 2) conduct a consensus building process to build support and commitments among key stakeholders in the community in order to implement the identified practice. The evaluation focused on 80 grants funded between 1997 through 2000 that have completed Phase I projects and determined consensus building outcomes, as well as the factors that promoted or impeded the process.

U.S.-Mexico Border States Prevention Initiative Evaluation: With support from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, ASDC conducted an evaluation of the U.S.-Mexico Border States Prevention Initiative. The purpose of the project was to improve collaboration among local, state, and federal service providers and agencies and their Mexican counterparts in the four border states. ASDC facilitated a common design and measures amongst State and National agencies and a MIS system.

Collaborative Strategy Training: ASDC provided technical assistance and training to the staff of the Departments of Health for New York State and New York City in developing support systems for grantees involved in coalitions and other collaborative efforts.

ASSIST Evaluation Plan and Management-National Cancer Institute: The American Stop Smoking Intervention Trials (ASSIST) is the largest public health tobacco-control effort in U.S. history. This initiative supports state and local coalitions in 23 states to control tobacco use through policy and other systemic changes. ASDC facilitated the design of the evaluation, including the development of a logic model, conceptual development and operationalization of systems change measures, and development of preliminary statistical models. It facilitated workgroups of leading scientists, National Cancer Institute staff, and practitioners. ASDC also designed the final evaluation plan and developed an evaluation management plan.

Planning 25th Anniversary National Health Services Corps-Bureau of Primary Health Care (HHS): The National Health Services Corps (NHSC) has been bringing health services to under-served communities for more than 25 years. ASDC assisted NHSC and its parent agency, the Bureau of Primary Health Care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to use the 25th anniversary celebration as an opportunity to increase the NHSC's role in eliminating disparities in access to health care and to focus public attention on the issue. ASDC facilitated a participatory strategic planning process and provided technical assistance for this effort.

Safe Start Evaluation: ASDC is conducting a national cross-site evaluation of and providing technical assistance and capacity building to local communities that are part of the Safe Start Initiative of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The purpose of the initiative is to achieve effective change in systems serving children and families exposed to violence in order to reduce the impact of exposure to violence on children. The evaluation includes working in partnership with Safe Start grantees and their local evaluators to develop meaningful evaluation strategies, providing evaluation-related training and technical assistance, case study development and cross case analysis, and helping identify promising strategies and implementation challenges that will enable Safe Start grantees to continue to improve service delivery to children and families. ASDC is responsible for technical assistance on evaluation to local grantees and the National Evaluation.

Embedding Prevention in State Policy and Practice: ASDC provided evaluation and capacity building services to the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) for its Embedding Prevention in State Policy and Practice initiative. ASDC examined the effectiveness of approaches used to embed prevention in state policy and practice in six states and helped NCPC build its capacity to provide technical assistance to states' efforts in this area.

Full-Service Community Schools Program: The purpose of this project, sponsored by the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, was to evaluate the efforts of three middle schools to develop full-service community school models. The three sites represented diverse social contexts and were at different stages of development of the community school model. The evaluation involved both process and outcome evaluation components to understand the process of developing a community school and its effects on the sites.

National Funding Collaborative on Violence Prevention Capacity Building: ASDC assisted in the development of a national capacity building strategy on community building, collaboration, and violence prevention on behalf of this national group. Our assistance included consultation on a immersion training program for community violence prevention workers, an inventory of national intermediaries that assist communities in community violence prevention strategies, a monograph on the principle guiding the evaluation of comprehensive community initiatives(read the monograph), and consultation on their knowledge management and distribution system.

Police Mentoring/Safe Haven Evaluation: For five years ASDC monitored and evaluated the performance of community policing efforts in six communities for the Milton S. Eisenhower foundation. The monitoring process included analysis of crime data, community surveys, analysis of educational performance data, and was enhanced by the inclusion of juvenile justice data in some communities. ASDC began monitoring Quantum Opportunity Programs (education and life skills training) at several Safe Haven sites