Early Care and Education Collaborative: Follow-up Evaluation

This 15-page report is a follow-up evaluation of the Early Care and Education Collaborative, a multi-year strategic communications training-focused programme led by the United-States-based Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC). This training process is designed to support a cohort of 8 state-based child advocacy organisations in their development of communications strategies - e.g., by making informed choices about communications tools such as public relations, polling, research, and advertising - that foster the expansion and quality of early care and education resources. The evaluation examined how Collaborative participants in 4 states (Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey) have sustained and built on their strategic communications activity, and how this activity has translated into results. (The first evaluation was conducted, also by the HFRP, in 2001).

The evaluation was organised around a 4-level framework for evaluating training programmes that draws on a success-case method approach. This methodology uses a blend of storytelling and evaluation inquiry and documentation to trace a sequence of potential outcomes, beginning with participants' reactions to the training itself and ending with the training's impact on their organisations. Examples from the 4 focus states illustrate the findings in the text.

Here is a brief overview of some of the salient research findings:

1. What about the Collaborative did participants find of most value?
   
   • Rather than delivering a pre-determined early care and education agenda, the Collaborative focused on helping participants advance their own agendas by giving them communications knowledge and skills that they could take back to their organisations and apply in ways that best fit their structures, missions, and resources.
   • It was the executive directors - "the primary change agents in their organizations" - that the Collaborative sought to engage.
   • The Collaborative offered strategic communications training in a variety of learning formats, including peer-to-peer, expert advice and technical assistance, skills training, and role playing. The peer-to-peer learning was especially effective, leading to (among other benefits) participants becoming resources for one another outside of Collaborative meetings.
2. What did participants learn that was particularly useful? Among the broad categories cited include: how to think differently and strategically about communications (e.g., be purposive and proactive about communications - and integrate communications in an overall organisational culture and strategy), as well as ways of challenging conventional advocacy practice (e.g., before messaging, it is critical to recognise the way the media or an audience frames the issue).
3. What have participants applied from their learning? - The evaluation shows that, as a result of their participation, Collaborative participants made positive changes such as: hiring communications staff with specialised knowledge and experience, adapting to difficult budget circumstances and other crises, and transferring communications learning to other advocacy issues ("demonstrating a built-in capacity that is integrated throughout the organization and is sustainable.")
4. How has applying what was learned produced a return on investment for participants? - Through a training focus on how participants are perceived by audiences, advocates have positioned themselves as less partisan and more as experts on child-related issues (e.g., by relying less on themselves as messengers). Strategic communications has also helped participants develop effective relationships with other advocates, which has called for "careful positioning so that all groups involved feel like they have a voice. It also requires careful negotiation among groups that sometimes have competing interests and viewpoints." Participants have reportedly experienced increases in advocacy constituent bases and seen "significant policy outcomes" based on their engagement in more effective strategic communications processes.

The report concludes by presenting broad lessons about developing strategic communications capacity among advocates and other nonprofits based on the Collaborative experience. One such lesson: "A commitment to participate may be needed. Because in a small peer group consistent attendance and participation is important, some partners felt that participants should be required to make a minimum level of commitment to participate in meetings or apply learning outside the meeting. They felt this kind of accountability may help to enhance participation, and consequently learning."