How it Works

How We Measure Programmatic Results 

Improving women’s economic empowerment is a complex challenge that requires the many interconnected efforts of organizations and individuals. Measuring advances in gender equity can also be complex, so we use a collaborative approach to ensure that our grantee partners can measure what matters, use methods that are best fit for local contexts, and have the training, tools, and support they need. 

Women First allows grantee partners to select from a menu of core indicators, aligned with our three outcome domains, and allows for flexibility in the definitions, tools, and methodologies that grantees use. This approach balances the diversity of our grantees’ approaches with our interest in gathering data on common outcomes within our grant portfolio.

Women First intends to collaborate with grantee partners to understand longer-term, broader impact over time through synthesizing insights from year-over-year grantee reporting on the more immediate outcomes, as well as engaging in third-party evaluation efforts with local evaluators where feasible.

We also believe that every woman’s story is important, so we partner with our grantees to collect testimonies, case studies, and interviews to highlight individual experiences of impact.

How We Measure organizational effectiveness and sustainability

Our grantee partners are also working towards organizational goals they have defined themselves. In each stage of funding, grantees complete a self-assessment using the Women First Grassroots Organizational Capacity Assessment Tool (GrOCAT), which is a survey designed to help organizations better understand their capacities across key areas of effectiveness. Women First uses results from these periodic assessments, combined with other organizational effectiveness indicators, to understand organizational growth across our grants portfolio.