The Greater New Orleans Foundation Assessment

While for some of its initiatives, such as Stand Up for Children, the Greater New Orleans Foundation has undertaken formal evaluations, much of the time paying for outside third-party assessment of its Organizational Effectiveness (OE) work is too costly to pursue. As a result, the foundation combines multiple methods internally to understand the impact of its OE efforts. “We do a pre- and post-assessment evaluation on all of our workshops,” says Joann Ricci, vice president of organizational effectiveness at the Greater New Orleans Foundation. “We then go back informally to some of the organizations served and say, ‘How has the awareness changed? How have behaviors changed for you, and for your organization?’” GNOF is exploring some new assessment methods for its OE work. “We’re looking at all of our trend data, and then doing some focus groups and one-on-one interviews,” says Joann Ricci at the Greater New Orleans Foundation. GNOF is also considering case studies of what worked and didn’t, which provide powerful lessons learned.