CLIENT CASE STUDY

United Way of Greater Nashville, The Family Collective

Project: Outcomes harvest

Sector: Nonprofit, collaborative

Focus: Preventing family homelessness

Project Length: 4 years

Making sense of the complex.

The United Way of Greater Nashville received a significant grant from the TN Department of Human Services to implement The Family Collective (TFC) in five counties in Middle TN. The Family Collective aims to reduce family homelessness through an innovative 2Gen approach, providing coordinated wrap-around services to families experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, homelessness, combined with a systems change initiative that engages key community partners in raising awareness and building capacity to support families experiencing homelessness. Given the complexity of The Family Collective’s model, monitoring program implementation and lessons learned while also trying to understand the impact of a diverse service mix based on individual family needs requires ongoing effort. In particular, pinpointing the impacts of TFC’s unique system-wide approach to improving services for families is a challenge.

Services

Program evaluation strategy and design

Development and selection of data collection instruments

Data collection with program partners

Outcome harvest

Quantitative and qualitative data analysis and reporting

Evaluation training and collaborative data sharing

Data visualization and ongoing reporting

Systems change strategy consultation

Our approach

Working closely with the TFC backbone team at United Way of Greater Nashville and its partners, we have designed and implemented a “soup to nuts” evaluation strategy to understand the initiative’s impact at multiple levels, including impacts on families, service providers who are part of the collective, and local systems of support for those experiencing homelessness.

One unique method included in the evaluation strategy is outcome harvesting. Outcome harvesting is particularly useful in understanding the impact of work that is new, innovative, or occurs in a dynamic environment. It is well-positioned to explore outcomes when those outcomes are not necessarily known or predictable at the onset of the work. The Family Collective outcome harvest is currently ongoing, but early iterations of the harvest with the United Way team and its partners are showing a much deeper and nuanced perspective on the scope of the TFC systems change work and the changes in collaboration, community capacity, and service provision that have been influenced by TFC’s unique approach to service delivery and collective partnership.

Over the past 4 years, Elevate Consulting has partnered with The Family Collective as a thought partner, evaluator, and strategic support. The Outcomes Harvest served as a unique way to collaboratively identify behavior change from our initiative and convey the profound impact TFC has had in advancing efforts to build local systems of support across our region.
— Rod DeVore, Director, 2Gen Initiatives, United Way of Greater Nashville

Project Team

Whitney Akalugwu, M.S.

Associate Consultant, Project Support

Gavin Crowell-Williamson, M. Ed.

Consultant, Project Support

Jessica Gibbons-Benton, M. Ed.

Chief Practice Officer, Project Support

Hannah Wohltjen, M.A., M.P.H.

Chief Research & Evaluation Officer, Project Lead and Principal

The Outcomes Harvest process has really enabled us to see the system effects of a wide-reaching, complex initiative. I really enjoyed the opportunity to gain the perspectives of The Family Collectives’ system and program stakeholders.
— Hannah Wohltjen, Chief Research & Evaluation Officer

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