Learning to Inform Future Grantmaking and Advance the Field
Centered on equity and focused on systemic change, learning and evaluation (L&E) is central to our strategic grantmaking and investing. Over the past year, we have strengthened our commitment to evidence-based innovation by expanding our L&E team and building upon a robust impact measurement strategy. L&E partners with Foundation staff to analyze data from our grantees and investees, explore trends in the field and guide the learning life cycle. Through L&E, we use lessons learned to inform our grantmaking and investing and advance the field more broadly.
Bolstering Our Initiatives
L&E collaborates with the program team to launch, implement and evaluate portfolio strategies. For example, the Rural Impact Initiative is the latest area of focus for the Foundation. L&E supported an evaluation of ECMC Foundation’s previous and current grant-funded projects in rural areas, which involved exploring potential strategies and opportunities for meaningful impact, suggesting key metrics and identifying future considerations. The ECMC Foundation Board of Directors approved the Rural Impact Initiative in 2023, and related grants and investments will be made throughout 2024.
Another example of how L&E supported the program team was helping design the theory of action for our Basic Needs Initiative, which outlines a comprehensive, three-pronged approach to reducing the number of postsecondary students experiencing basic needs insecurity by 10% by 2033.
Fueling Evidence-Based Innovation
L&E has tested areas of exploration and opportunity and continues to engage in learning cycles and facilitate conversations about projects we may fund in the future. The team identifies trends and themes that emerge across our grantmaking to help inform potential future initiatives as the Foundation continues to adapt and evolve with the changing postsecondary landscape.
For example, one trend across the Foundation’s grantmaking centers on data. An analysis conducted by our L&E team, in collaboration with our Strategically Responsive team, found just over half of the grants made in 2023 related to data in at least one of six ways: evaluating programs; applying research to generate new information; increasing the data capacity of institutions and states; bringing together disparate data sources; developing new data or refining existing data; and/or democratizing data by developing, refining or expanding access to data via dashboards, apps or other tools.
Growing Data Literacy
As part of our commitment to better our understanding of trends in the field, the Foundation hosts regular learning sessions. L&E plays an instrumental role in developing these sessions, as was the case during a session focused on higher education data.
Pictured: With support and speakers from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the Data Quality Campaign and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, L&E led the Foundation’s first-ever data retreat in May 2023. Staff from ECMC Foundation and across the ECMC Group enterprise joined a learning session to better understand how postsecondary data can be leveraged to make progress toward systemic change.
