OUR THEORY OF CHANGE
for General Operating Support
We know that our impact as a foundation ultimately rests on the strength of our local health ecosystem. In alignment with our strategic plan, we are tracking our progress toward our vision through our general operating support—a core strand of our grantmaking.
We do this by following our Theory of Change, which presents a roadmap that outlines measurable actions to achieve our intended short and long-term outcomes as a foundation.
This framework reflects the principles articulated in our strategic plan and our commitment to racial equity by centering communities’ leadership and lived experience, which we believe will advance health equity in our service region.
THE MODEL
OUR VISION
This vision grounds our strategies and shapes our goals for the impact we seek to make with our grantmaking.
OUR APPROACH
Since 2018, our general operating support has evolved into three strands. We view this type of grantmaking as central to supporting sustainable and scalable systems change efforts that advance racial equity and health equity in our communities.
OUR INTENDED OUTCOMES
The Impact We Seek
We assess the progress of our goals at three levels:
SHORT-TERM: Grantee Partner Organizations
LONG-TERM: Community Members, Local & National Peers
SHORT-TERM OUTCOMES
For Grantee Partner Organizations
LONG-TERM OUTCOMES
For Community Members
LONG-TERM OUTCOMES
For Local and National Philanthropic Peers
We see evaluation as a tool to continuously evolve our grantmaking strategies as a foundation and reveal structural factors that drive racial and health inequities in our service region. We are committed to sharing how we continue evolving our grantmaking practices and evaluating our impact.
We are influenced by the Equitable Evaluation Initiative’s leadership and inspired to contribute to the aims of the Equitable Evaluation FrameworkTM. We invite you to read more about their work here.
Learn more about our Learning & Evaluation
Our Program Manager of Learning and Evaluation Gillian Knight introduces our Theory of Change for general operating support and provides context on how it was developed and what we hope to learn from our grantmaking.
This report shares insights about how our grantmaking practices have shifted since 2018 and how that has informed our grantmaking to meet evolving health needs and influence the broader health ecosystem in our region.
In collaboration with health leaders in our region, we developed a framework that helps us assess how our work is creating change, addressing organizational and community needs, and achieving measurable impact.