Clear all

30 results found

reorder grid_view

2021 Local Grantmaking Capacity Survey Summary

February 17, 2022

Since 2009, the Packard Foundation has surveyed our local Bay Area grantee partners to better understand and monitor the context in which these organizations work, as well as their organizational strengths and needs. In 2021, the survey was designed to focus on the major issues of this time including the continued impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, regional wildfires, and the economic downturn. This executive summary presents the 2021 survey findings that gathered data from 121 organizations that our Local Grantmaking program supports.The report highlights the sustained impact the pandemic has had on community-based organizations, such as increases in service demands and significant senior leadership turnover, as well as signs of hope and progress, including increases in in-person services and increases in overall private funding and relief funding. The findings paint a picture of an ecosystem of organizations who are optimistic about the pandemic recovery and their ability to meet the challenges and demands of the time but still grappling with the unpredictable landscape and how it will affect their capacity, staff, clients, and community. Recruiting, retaining, and supporting staff remains at the heart of many of the most difficult and pressing capacity needs, including staff for fundraising, monitoring, and justice and equity work. Additionally, organizations see an opportunity for the Packard Foundation to not only continue, but augment, its investments and supports for justice and equity efforts.The Foundation uses this annual survey to inform our local Bay Area grantmaking strategies, including initiatives where we support projects and learning opportunities that enhance the organizational and leadership capacity of grantees.

Scaling Programs for Family, Friend, and Neighbor Caregivers: Learnings From The Packard Foundation’s Informal Care Strategy

October 1, 2020

he first five years of children's lives are fundamental to their growth and development. Many children in this age group spend a substantial amount of time being cared for by extended family, friends, or neighbors. Informal care—or Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) care —is both an affordable and a flexible form of care and a way to provide children with a warm, nurturing environment with a trusted caregiver. In 2014, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation's Children, Families, and Communities program launched a 10-year Informal Care Strategy to support FFN caregivers — both nationally and within California — as they provide the kinds of nurturing and enriching experiences children need early in life to reach full potential.Engage R+D has been the evaluation partner of the Packard Foundation for its Informal Care strategy since 2016. Individual-level and cross-cutting evaluations of its FFN grants showed promising results in terms of their ability to have positive impacts on caregivers. However, as of 2019, the Foundation had not yet conducted a comprehensive study of the third phase of its investment strategy, which related to scaling the most promising practices. This report synthesizes a range of lessons and implications for those interested in supporting and scaling FFN programs, including funders, community organizations, and advocacy groups.

MEL Practice at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation: Evaluation in Support of Moving from Good to Great

January 31, 2019

In early 2017, ORS Impact evaluated and re-examined the David and Lucile Packard Foundation monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) principles and practice. The purpose of this evaluation was to discover what works well, identify areas for improvement, and stimulate reflection and experimentation. While this report uncovered many examples of strong MEL practice across the Foundation it also highlighted opportunities for improvement. Research findings fed into Foundation decisions to update both internal and external MEL processes and requirements, including refinement of the Foundation's Guiding Principles for MEL.A key audience of this report include readers wrestling with how to best support MEL in philanthropic settings so that it can support greater learning and impact, such as MEL staff working inside foundations and external evaluators working with foundations.

Grantee Perception Report: Prepared for The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

October 1, 2018

Based on a survey of grantees and declined applicants conducted last year by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, the report (74 pages, PDF) found that grantees' perceptions of the foundation remained positive across most measures, including impact on grantees' fields (82nd percentile among nearly three hundred peer organizations), impact on organizations (63rd percentile), funder-grantee relationships (70th percentile), openness to ideas from grantees about its strategy (80th percentile), and transparency (67th percentile). Within its customized peer cohort of twenty-three foundations, the foundation ranked highest on overall relationships with grantees, fairness in its treatment of grantees, staff responsiveness, clarity of communications with respect to goals and strategy, and consistency of the information it provides.

Our Shared Seas: A 2017 Overview of Ocean Threats and Conservation Funding

May 30, 2017

Our Shared Seas is a guide of the primary ocean threats and trends to help funders, advocates, and governments make better, faster, and more informed decisions. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation commissioned California Environmental Associates to develop the guide for the increasing number of philanthropists and aid agencies that have risen to the challenges facing our ocean.It is essential that we work together to tackle illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing. IUU fishing makes it all the more difficult to ensure we have enough fish in the ocean for future generations. Solutions that address IUU fishing are especially compelling because they are exactly what we need for responsible and evidence-based marine resource management.

Engaging Family, Friend, and Neighbor Informal Caregivers

April 1, 2017

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation's Children, Families and Communities program is investing in exploratory projects to learn more about informal care settings. The overall goal of this work is to test strategies to provide information to family, friends, and neighbors (FFN), or informal caregivers, connect them with resources as well as each other, and support them in providing quality care for young children. Harder+Company Community Research, in partnership with the Center for Evaluation Innovation, conducted an evaluation of four informal care grants with an emphasis on learning from and with grantees, and using evaluation tools to support and strengthen the projects.

Ocean Prosperity Roadmap

December 6, 2016

The Ocean Prosperity Roadmap: Fisheries and Beyond was a collection of research launched at the Economist's 2015 World Ocean Summit. It was designed to inform decision makers, including governments and investors, on effective ocean and coastal resource management strategies to maximize economic, conservation and societal benefits.This set of infographics was derived from the research collection, which demonstrated how governance and management reform can reduce poverty while achieving economic gains, increasing food production, replenishing fish and conserving ocean health for future generations. This is especially true in the case of wild capture fisheries. Taken together, the collection of seven studies creates a comprehensive overview of what's possible to achieve in the ocean economy and emerging best practices on how to get there.

Review of 2015 Grantmaking

January 1, 2016

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Annual Report.

Mission Investments At The Packard Foundation

December 2, 2015

Since the Packard Foundation's first PRI in 1980, its approach to mission investing has evolved dramatically. This report by Redstone Strategy Group documents key learnings from some of the Foundation's more innovative, complex deals -- experiences that pushed the Foundation beyond the land and facilities PRIs that typified its early mission investments.It closes with some of the most challenging questions that remain for the Foundation and the field as the value and limitations of mission investing come into sharper focus.

Family at the Center

September 1, 2015

To better understand how family engagement supports school readiness in Los Angeles County, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment convened an advisory group of early childhood leaders and stakeholders to provide advice and explore opportunities to strengthen parent engagement. This report summarizes key insights and recommendations that emerged through these discussions and additional research about parent engagement programs and practices.

American Millennials: Cultivating the Next Generation of Ocean Conservationists

June 9, 2015

Millennials are the largest generation in the United States. By 2020, one in three adults will be a millennial (born from 1981 to 1997). This generation has already shown itself to be capable of immense innovation and disruption of the status quo. While a significant amount of research has been conducted on millennials, there is little insight on conservation, and even less for the ocean. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation partnered with Edge Research to conduct new research on American Millennials' attitudes towards oceans, ocean conservation, and pathways for engaging this next generation of ocean leaders. Edge Research then conducted a set of follow-up research on what current ocean messaging fares well and falls flat with millennials. Below you can access the initial and add-on research to learn more.

Capacity Building in Indonesia: Lessons from Across 3 Cases

May 14, 2015

Seeking to answer the question "what capacity building (CB) interventions in Indonesia can produce the capacity required to drive sustainable marine resource management and conservation," a series of investigations into existing initiatives and partnerships resulted in a set of three main case studies (and two minor). These three main cases included assessing an asset-based CB approach, an approach to CB along a value-chain, and possibilities for engaging communities in partnerships with local Universities to drive CB in the community. This report synthesizes findings from each case study, describing findings and implications of each.