Strengthening Outcomes Measurement for Public Grants in Massachusetts

In 2024, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO) engaged Social Finance to support its grant making operations by helping to strengthen its outcomes measurement practices.

The AGO returns millions of dollars to local communities each year through its competitive grant programs. These programs support a wide range of initiatives, including approaches to improve maternal health equity, substance use prevention and treatment programs, summer youth employment opportunities, local consumer assistance programs, a residential energy assistance program, and a neighborhood renewal fund.

Goals

• Develop a measurement framework that promotes data-driven decision making.
• Center equity in each stage of the grant making process, including in grant initiative selection and grantee award decisions.
• Improve the ability to measure the impact of grants, especially ones that are focused on systems change work.
• Incorporate community voice into the grant outcomes measurement and assessment processes.
• Enhance public communication on grant achievements.

The Work

• Theory of Change: Social Finance is developing a framework that will link inputs, activities, and outputs conducted through the AGO’s grant initiatives to outcomes and longer-term systems change priorities as described in the AGO’s strategic plan. Using this framework, our team will create an assessment tool to support the AGO’s grants team in evaluating grant initiative ideas.
• Measurement Framework: Focusing on one upcoming grant initiative, Social Finance is developing a grant application assessment rubric, and a framework for measuring the grant initiative’s success. These tools will serve as model measurement frameworks for the AGO to use as a measurement framework for future initiatives.
• Data Visualization and Communication Strategy: To help the AGO communicate the impact of its grant programs to the broader community, Social Finance is developing mock dashboards and visual options for data communication approaches, drawing on data collected from current grant initiatives.

The photo at the top of the page shows Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell with one of the AGO’s 2024 Healthy Summer Youth Jobs grantees, Courageous Sailing.