From Planning to Practice

The organizational capacity building outcomes terminology was not adopted by investees in the way TFF had originally envisioned.

TFF’s four organizational outcome domains are^[1]: Strategic Leadership and Planning; Outcomes-Focused Management; Performance Management; and Program Quality, Fidelity, and Effectiveness.

These domains, described in detail on the Foundation’s website, also function as TFF’s investment categories, against which progress is tracked. Still, there is little evidence of adoption of this specific terminology by the majority of investees–this is not to say these domains are not being advanced, but rather investees are not using this specific language within their organizations. This may be a result of a decreased focus on the terms over time by the Foundation based on investee feedback, or the shift to investing in three initiatives/partnerships in the second cohort versus three individual organizations and one initiative in the first cohort. The “organizational outcomes” language is less relevant to initiatives given there are multiple participating partners that track progress against their own work plans rather than track outcomes via a measurement tool like iCAT. One investee indicated they did not understand TFF’s funding categories or the outcomes the Foundation is pursuing: “One thing I find difficult is trying to determine what needs would be of the most interest to the Foundation. In our strategic plan, we have several goals and if there were a general guide to the types of projects the Foundation was most interested in supporting–or a guide to projects that would not be supported–it would be helpful.”

The Foundation initially explored having all investees use one SEL performance management tool to track five child outcomes identified in TFF’s Logic Model (see graphic above). The data from the tool was to be used for “performance management” or teacher practice improvement purposes. The tool was developed by Child Trends with Foundation staff input and includes teacher and student report items. However, investees perceived the tool as burdensome to use for large numbers of children and not conducive to their emerging SEL measurement needs. This mismatch may have come from the Foundation’s goal of having investees use the tool simply for performance management (that is, very quick, iterative practice improvement cycles using data trends, not precision measurement) while partnering with a research organization to develop the tool whose staff were understandably concerned with ensuring validity and reliability of such a measure. While some constructs measured by the Child Trends tool are still being monitored via surveys, the vision that all investees would use the same tool was quickly dispatched by the Foundation.

The Foundation also expanded the way it characterized social and emotional learning in response to investee shifts. While direct instruction in social and emotional skills remains a central part of SEL implementation, the Foundation increasingly took an ecological approach to child development and sought to promote a systemic view of SEL. In keeping with the SEL field’s expansion and increasing sophistication, TFF’s thinking and support began to more intentionally address environmental conditions of learning, including climate and culture. TFF became more alert to ensuring investee’s SEL implementation did not enforce student behavioral compliance in culturally biased ways and took into account implications of adversity science to learning and development. Consequently, TFF became less prescriptive around measuring the five specific child outcomes in the logic model and invested in approaches and programming whose goals go beyond promoting those child outcomes including New Beginnings Family Academy’s Emotionally Responsive Practice and Bridgeport Public School (BPS)’s efforts to adopt a trauma-informed lens and implement restorative justice approach to student discipline.

Cross-portfolio information sharing and learning among investees proved harder to achieve than TFF anticipated. Bandwidth has been understandably thin at both TFF, to design and host ongoing portfolio-wide collaboration opportunities, and among investees, to engage in knowledge sharing.

Additionally, there are a wide array of perceptions of the Foundation’s cross organization learning strategy. While some investees mentioned that the annual meeting hosted by TFF “fostered a sense of community,” several cohort 2 investees share a desire for additional chances to collaborate: “I would like more opportunities to work with others in the community and know what they’re doing” and “bringing folks together more would be beneficial.” The time constraints brought on by the pandemic limited investee capacity to join events and it is unclear if the Foundation met their own goals–and investee expectations–of offering consistent, structured chances for cross-portfolio learning. “I think the pandemic threw a wrench in the peer learning opportunities” one investee surmised. However, in 2020 and 2021, TFF staff focused on offering virtual knowledge-building opportunities in direct response to investee’s expressed needs, which were largely well received. Conversely, two leaders of investee organizations expressed that while they experienced gatherings as “nice” or “pleasant,” some meetings were not perceived as responsive to their most pressing needs. Some investees shared that the demands of their positions, particularly during the pandemic, made it unlikely they would join more frequent meetings with other investees even if they were offered.