The California HealthCare Foundation - California Health Giving - Philanthropy Services

Midwest Office
Cleveland
30628 Detroit Road
No. 222
Westlake, OH 44145

West Coast Office
San Francisco
One Embarcadero
Center, Suite 500
San Francisco,
CA 94111

800.598.2102
email putnamcic.com

Copyright ©2000-2006
Kris Putnam-Walkerly, Putnam
Community Investment
Consulting.
All rights reserved.

The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of the people of California.

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Client Challenges: In early 2004, the CHCF Board of Directors sought to gain a deeper understanding about the impact of their Foundation as a whole, rather than from individual grants. To lay the groundwork for this process of self-examination, they first needed to explore the approaches and measures that other foundations had applied to similar evaluations. With the next CHCF board meeting just four weeks away, the staff did not have the time to complete the required level of research and analysis, so they contacted Putnam for assistance.
Putnam Contributions: After clarifying project goals, Putnam conducted a comprehensive scan of the field. We conducted interviews with evaluation and management staff of foundations involved in their own foundation-wide evaluations, and spoke at length with experts in the foundation evaluation field. In addition, Putnam conducted an in-depth review of printed literature and Internet resources on topics related to foundation-wide evaluation. Finally, Putnam wrote a detailed report outlining key points to be shared with the CHCF Board of Directors.
Project Outcomes: One week before the CHCF Board meeting, Putnam delivered a comprehensive report entitled Measuring Foundation Performance: Examples from the Field. The CHCF found the report to be extremely helpful in clarifying and informing its decision-making on how best to approach their own foundation-wide evaluation. The CHCF then took the unusual step of inviting the author and Principal Consultant, Kris Putnam, to present the findings directly to its board members, and subsequently decided to share the report with colleagues in the field.