There’s no question that the potential of the ‘data revolution’ first described in the U.N.’s “A World that Counts” report has captured the imagination of the international development community, especially data-wonks and donors concerned with how the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals will be measured. In the many discussions that have ensued, a consistent theme has …
The ultimate measure of success in education is not whether or not children attend school, but whether they learn. And creating a system in which learning is valued requires finding out what children are learning and building broad awareness about it. It was these two principles that inspired the organization Pratham in India to mobilize …
The Hewlett Foundation supported Results for Development Institute in this evaluation of citizen-led assessments of learning. The Foundation’s Global Development and Population Program has funded citizen-led assessments as a central part of our Quality Education in Developing Countries Initiative and continues to do so as a way of measuring children’s basic reading and math abilities …
Social media has become Millennials’ top source for politics. A great new study by the Pew Research Center, released this week, finds that a solid 61% of Millennials say they get political news from Facebook, versus just 39% of Baby Boomers. Gen Xers like me bridge the gap at 51%. “Millennials and Political News” is …
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s 2013 Audited Financial Statements
The iceberg metaphor for policy change, as described by Rhonda Schlangen and Jim Coe at BetterEvaluation.org (Image Credit: ORS Impact) How do you measure the effectiveness of policy work? There may be a single decision-point (or a distinct set) that the work is aimed toward, but focusing only on those points glosses over the hard, …
Between 2008 and 2014, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Nuclear Security Initiative (NSI) made 128 grants totaling $24.7M. As part of the wind-down of the initiative, Hewlett engaged ORS Impact to conduct an evaluation looking back at the NSI strategy, its evolution, accomplishments and challenges. In the latter part of 2014, evaluators interviewed a …
Earlier this month, Fay Twersky, director of our Effective Philanthropy Group, joined Jacob Harold of Guidestar and Cynthia Figueroa of Congreso de Latinos Unidos for a conversation about the Performance Imperative, an effort to develop a common definition of “high performance” for the nonprofit sector and describe the seven pillars that can help organizations achieve their greatest impact. A …
Photo Credit: “In the stacks” by Anna Creech, licensed under CC BY NC SA 2.0 We fund a lot of research in the Global Development and Population Program. So we want to be sure that the researchers we’re supporting are using sound methods and reporting accurate findings. We want to contribute to the global public good of new knowledge, …
Kim Hamilton is senior advisor to the Family Planning team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This piece is cross-posted from the Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimists blog -Ed. When the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to create the Quality Education in Developing Countries (QEDC) initiative, we did …