Coalitions
Coalitions, collectives, collaborations... Though they may share a common goal, the simple truth is that forming, directing, and measuring the performance of organizations comprised of independent entities -- each with their own leadership teams, capabilities, resources, cultures, and agendas -- can be a challenging, even daunting task. Apter & O'Connor is well-versed at supporting such multi-party organizations, fostering a unifying vision, and navigating with sensitivity the nuances of a diverse organization.
Shown below are a handful of coalitions we've helped, some of which include brief case histories. Contact us today, to learn more about what we can do for your group of organizations.
O’Connor Mentors Next Generation of Leaders through Marsellus LeadUp Program - January 2023
For the 5th year, Cynthia O’Connor, in partnership with Katie Doucette from The Leading Element, is providing mentorship, support, and instruction to the next generation of leaders of nonprofit agencies in Onondaga and Madison Counties in Central New York.
The Marsellus Family Fund at the Central New York Community Foundation created LeadUp to invest time and resources in future leadership development. Cynthia and Katie work with the program’s annual cohort of ten to twelve participants selected from small or mid-sized organizations with limited professional development resources. They help each participant create an individualized development plan to allow for demonstrated growth toward their goals.
Through one-on-one coaching, half-day group learning sessions, panel discussions, and networking with key community leaders, participants gain exposure to many perspectives within the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Cynthia and Katie bring their unique real-world experiences and a genuine and straightforward approach to the program’s activities. The participants provide glowing reviews each year:
LeadUp changed us all for the better and in doing so presented Syracuse with ten leaders more able to lead with compassion, confidence, and connections. LeadUp changes the community for the better.
LeadUp gave me the opportunity to take the goals I’ve had in my head, get them down on paper in an achievable format and finally execute on them! The networking with other local, like-minded leaders was so valuable. That coupled with the individual coaching sessions made for one of the best professional development opportunities I’ve had the pleasure to take part in. I would recommend this to anyone looking to grow their networks, achieve new goals and sharpen their leadership skills
The coaching sessions were amazing. I am not sure that I would have accomplished some of my personal and professional goals this year without Katie and Cynthia's mentorship.
Central New York Community Foundation: The Literacy Task Force
Apter & O’Connor led the CNY Community Foundation’s initiative to develop community wide indicators to assess literacy in Central New York. A&O conducted background research, guided the management team and facilitated a task force of 25 community leaders and literacy stakeholders through a six-month strategic planning process. Throughout the process we prepared materials and planned & facilitated all Community Stakeholder meetings, provided regular summaries and feedback to the management team and produced a final report with indicators that served as the foundation for the establishment of a community wide literacy coalition that continues today, five years later.
Cities First Readers (CFR) is a collaboration of numerous nonprofits and all three public library systems across New York City designed to support the development of a literacy rich ecosystem. Their overarching goal is to ensure young children and their families receive needed supports to become successful readers. The collaborative partners are implementing numerous services and programs including parent education, book distributions, guided reading programs, professional development, home visiting and public awareness campaigns. A&O led the partners through a process of clarifying their goals, outcomes and strategies as well as each partner’s capacity for evaluation and their role within the collaborative. They were then ready to take the next step and document the benefits or impacts of this extensive endeavor. A&O conducts several independent evaluation inquiries each year utilizing a variety of methods analysis for statistical significance using standardized assessments, geocoding and mapping, descriptive illustrations of service statistics, interviews, observations, and surveys of numerous stakeholder groups. A few of these recent and current inquires have examined:
- the strength and maturity of the coalition using the lens of Collective Impact[1],
- whether targeted CFR interventions lead to improvements in knowledge, skill, and behavior among parents to support early literacy for young children
- the concentration of CFR services as related to poverty levels across all NY City council districts
- if attendance is improving at library story times within high-risk neighborhoods? Is there a correlation with the CFR public awareness campaign?
- how has CFR adapted and responded in the time of the COVID19 pandemic
- is there consistency across CFR partners in the use of evidence-based/ best practices for book distribution and associated educational messaging to support home environments and early literacy development?
A&O was chosen for their years of evaluation experience in early childhood and literacy related programming and is thrilled to support this important initiative.
[1] Preskill, H., Parkhurst, Marcie, Juster, J.S., Guide to Evaluating Collective Impact; Collective Impact Forum, FSG.
Rigorous Inquiries into Trends and Impacts of The Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga
The Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga County (ECA) was launched in 2015 to advance a comprehensive, coordinated, well-funded system of high-quality, prenatal-to-age-five early childhood programs and supports. It is a diverse cross-section of community stakeholders with a shared vision that all young children in the county are healthy, thriving, and successful in school and life, and that all families of young children are supported in their parenting. A&O was engaged to examine two of teh ECA’s key areas of effort: funding support and parent engagement.
In 2022, we completed a study of recent early childhood funding levels and trends nationally, statewide, and within Onondaga County. The results serve as an updated baseline for monitoring future growth and to measure ECA’s advocacy impact.
Methods for this inquiry included a document review of past ECA reports, a literature review on early childhood funding levels and trends at state and national levels, interviews with ECA staff, and a spring 2022 funding survey of local anchor systems (nine key early childhood services and supports).
That report, Funding to Support A Strong Early Childhood System 2019–2021, detected an 8% decrease in funding for the early childhood ecosystem from 2019 through 2021 in Onondaga County. Several survey respondents noted that COVID-related challenges, closures, and lockdowns skewed service delivery data and, in some cases, resulted in underutilized services which could explain some of the funding decreases.
The second inquiry, also completed in 2022, examined the Parent Advisory Council (PAC), the primary mechanism for the ECA’s parent engagement work. A group of parents of young children meet regularly to discuss improving the early childhood system, leveraging their own experiences to provide the ECA with input about its initiatives.
The ECA funded this study to learn how the PAC was functioning, what impact the members have on ECA planning and decision-making, and if the parent participants perceive any value or benefit for themselves. ECA was also interested in gaining new knowledge and ideas from other parent engagement professionals and endeavors statewide and nationally to help inform their overall parent engagement strategy.
A thorough report, Parents in Partnership: An Initiative of the Early Childhood Alliance of Onondaga County, offered valuable insights to the Alliance and strong recommendations and references to strengthen their early efforts.
The Family Reading Partnership is a coalition in Ithaca, NY, comprised of individuals, businesses, schools, libraries, and other organizations acting to “create a culture of literacy” to assure all children have early, frequent, and pleasurable experiences with books, as a special part of everyday family life, right from the start! A&O worked with the Partners to build evaluation capacity, guide a literature review, and develop programmatic logic models. A&O conducted external evaluations of three programs and with a participatory1 approach built the Partnership’s capacity to continue their evaluation work internally.
[1] Whitmore. E (Ed) (1998). Special Issue: Understanding and Practicing Participatory Evaluation. New Directions in Evaluation. Vol. 80, pp. 1-99
Testimonial
The A&O team provided us with thoughtful, engaging and realistic leadership for our evaluation project. They helped us understand the data and provided recommendations and ideas for our organizational growth (to address what we discovered in the evaluation.) Our organizational culture is shifting – we are “evaluation ready” and are now using data to inform our program planning thanks to the patience, skill and talent of the A&O team!
- A comment from our client...Health Foundation of Western and Central New York: Central New York Neighborhood Initiative — Helping Seniors to Age in Place
The Health Foundation of Western and Central New York in partnership with the Gifford Foundation funded a Central New York Neighborhood Action Initiative (CNYNAI) to create and test evidence-based practices that will enable seniors to remain in their homes and own communities as they grow older rather than in nursing homes or other forms of institutionalized care. To do this, the Foundation provided seven neighborhood-based organizations with resources to enable them to test best practice approaches designed to help people continue to live in their neighborhoods and to share knowledge, ideas and lessons learned with each other.
Apter & O’Connor served as the evaluator for this exciting initiative. In addition, we facilitated “learning communities” for the seven selected organizations. We were able to articulate the unique characteristics of each project that may have had the most significant influence or impact on creating conditions and supports that allow elderly residents to age in their own homes and neighborhoods. Each of the NAI funded agencies successfully served their target population of low-income seniors within their identified neighborhoods and received positive reviews and accolades from their participants. All found the Learning Sessions a valuable opportunity to network, share ideas and resources and support each other. Our final report, still in use, offered ideas for lessons learned by the Foundations as well as the seven agencies in serving this often challenging population in unique and creative ways.
Testimonial
I found the session on ‘fear of falling’ good reinforcement for the work I am doing when I look at safety in the home; I gained a few more areas of safety that I had overlooked. Hearing about other projects was helpful especially how there were problem solving to deal with barriers. Presenters were all helpful at generating deeper thought around topics such as connecting with people vs. technology, generational differences, concerns specific to seniors. Much thanks to Apter & O’Connor. I'm going to forward this useful report to our Executive Director and Personal Care Assistance President.
- A comment from our client...Apter & O’Connor led the CNY Community Foundation’s initiative to develop community wide indicators to assess literacy in Central New York. A&O conducted background research, guided the management team and facilitated a task force of 25 community leaders and literacy stakeholders through a six-month exploration and planning process. The final report served as the foundation for the establishment of a community wide literacy coalition that continues today. The Coalition provides home delivered books and activities through the Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, has won awards as a Pacesetter from the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and initiated numerous programs and activities in the Central New York community.\
Testimonial
As the facilitators of the Literacy Impact Task Force, Dianne and Cynthia helped us frame our task, refereed 'arguments,' got us to the goal. We now use the Indicators developed with them as the community measures of success. Dianne and Cynthia are practical, sensible data geeks.
- A comment from our client...Literacy Powerline
Apter & O’Connor is collaborating with the national organization, Literacy Powerline. The mission of Literacy Powerline is to increase literacy levels through effective and sustainable community collaboration and engagement. Literacy Powerline works with educators, business and labor leaders, philanthropic organizations, civic and faith-based groups, policymakers, literacy providers and students to demonstrate that everyone thrives when a community is committed to 100% literacy. Scores of communities across the country have accessed the resources and capabilities of the Literacy Powerline team. A&O is offering strategic planning, needs assessment and evaluation expertise to coalitions across the country to develop effective and highly accountable literacy initiatives within their own communities. We are excited to be part of the Literacy Powerline team working with the Annie E. Casey National Support Center for the Campaign for Grade Level Reading to provide consultation for accountability systems, implementation and sustainability efforts of funded projects, particularly in rural areas.
The Campaign for Grade-Level Reading
Closer to home, Apter & O’Connor has designed an evaluation of the Herkimer Oneida Literacy Coalition for Literacy Powerline. The approach is an empowerment model to facilitate stakeholder ownership of the evaluation activities and allow for on-going feedback, dialogue and appropriate adjustment. The evaluation is designed to measure the development of a fully functioning literacy coalition and the impact on the community.
A&O has joined Literacy Powerline to support the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading in communities across New York State. The Campaign is a collaborative effort by foundations, nonprofit partners, states and communities across the nation to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship. The Campaign focuses on an important predictor of school success and high school graduation—grade-level reading by the end of third grade. Recognizing that schools can’t “do it alone”, the Campaign seeks to engage and mobilize whole communities to remove barriers, expand learning opportunities and assist parents to serve as partners in their child’s education. A&O along with Literacy Powerline is helping to build a statewide network of GLR Communities across New York by offering coalition building, coaching, technical assistance and resources to individual communities and cities, so they can build their own unique networks and realize the goals of the Campaign.