Media Evaluation Project - United States

CCMC's initiative involves researching, developing, and testing principles for conducting evaluations of communications campaigns and sharing the results with foundations and nonprofits. Offering information and results related to this initiative through online resources (in PDF format) is the programme's central strategy. As of this writing, the project has produced four background research papers on topics ranging from case studies of nonprofit media campaigns to a study of existing methods to gauge media effectiveness of such campaigns. The papers were written by researchers working with CCMC from Harvard University, Michigan State University, and the University of California at Berkeley. For example, scholars from Michigan State University wrote "Mobilizing Public Will for Social Change", which is a study of the "theory of change" behind many strategic media campaigns initiated by nonprofit organisations and foundations. Click here to access this and other papers, which may be downloaded in PDF format.

Based on these background papers, the project will proceed through a collaborative process involving communication between evaluators and communicators from several disciplines. A core work group of experts drawn from academia, the evaluation community, foundations, for-profit companies will be guided by 10-15 senior advisors. In face-to-face meetings, this group will examine how current theories apply to public will campaigns and will develop principles for evaluating them. They will also explore strategies from outside the nonprofit arena. In addition to developing principles, these efforts are meant to build a constituency within the nonprofit and foundation community. As the project proceeds and the principles are articulated, selected nonprofit organisations and foundations will test the preliminary principles with actual campaigns in an effort to understand the principles and promote their use. Based on the outcomes of these tests, the preliminary principles might be revised, and then incorporated into a set of tools. In the autumn of 2003, CCMC will produce a draft set of evaluation templates based on this research

In the later stages of the project, CCMC will focus on reaching out to more people in the nonprofit community. The objective will be to provide information about the templates and gain feedback from this community. Outreach strategies will center on written materials (such as papers) and events (such as meetings).

Partnership, Media.

According to organisers, two trends are bringing about change in the philanthropic and nonprofit world. First, foundations are becoming increasingly focussed on outcomes and results and are asking their grantees to measure impact. Second, strategic communication activities are becoming an established component of both foundation and grantee work. Foundations are devoting more resources to reaching the public and targeted audiences through the media and other vehicles - and they are supporting more communications activities as major components in grantee initiatives. Organisers claim that, while the strength of these two trends continues to grow, they have yet to converge in a viable way. Because strategic communications require considerable time, expertise, and funding, foundations need to know: What is the best way to demonstrate the return on investment in nonprofit communications campaigns? Grantees want to know: How do we measure outcomes when we receive a grant that includes a communications component?

Established in 1988, CCMC is a public interest media centre dedicated to helping nonprofit organisations use media and new telecommunications technologies to achieve greater public awareness and social and policy change.