Build Your Advocacy Grantmaking: Advocacy Evaluation Tool & Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool

Published by the Alliance for Justice, this highly useful, interactive guide has two major parts: the Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool (13 pages) and the Advocacy Evaluation Tool (11 pages). The graphically pleasing guide is made for foundations and grantees to help improve evaluation methods given the difficulties of showing cause-and-effect between advocacy and policy change. A user-friendly introduction explains the purpose of the tools, suggested uses, a definition for advocacy, how the tools can guide grantmaking decisions, and how the tools can be customized. The Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool is introduced by important pointers for using the guide and interpreting results along with several definitions to assist users. The Tool is organized around nine broad indicators of capacity, with approximately one page devoted to each: decision making structures; advocacy agenda; organizational commitment to and resources for advocacy; advocacy base; advocacy partners; advocacy targets; media skills and infrastructure; advocacy strategies; and knowledge, skills, and systems to effectively implement strategies (this final section is longer than the others). Each section has a series of statements for which users are asked to check a box along the continuum of how true it is for their organization, and space is provided for user comments. The Advocacy Evaluation Tool is also introduced with pointers and relevant definitions. The Tool has two parts: one for the beginning of a grant period and one for the end (or interim) of a grant period. In each parts the Tool is organized into two sections: advocacy efforts and advocacy capacity building. Users are promted to state desired goals, planned strategies, intended outcomes, activities planned, and incremental results sought as they pertain to both advocacy efforts and advocacy capacity building. Unlike the previously described Advocacy Capacity Tool, the entire Advocacy Evaluation Tool asks open-ended questions and provides numerous examples along the way.