ICH was the evaluator for the Voices for Health Justice (Voices) 1.0 program, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and run by a Steering Committee comprising Community Catalyst, Community Change, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From December 2020 to March 2023, Voices 1.0 provided funding and technical assistance to 25 grantee organizations and their subgrantee partners in 24 states. The overarching goal of the program was to build power in communities experiencing disproportionate health inequities to improve healthcare accessibility, affordability, and ability to treat all people with dignity. ICH used a participatory and utilization-focused approach guided by the principles of equitable evaluation. This approach meant, among other things, that we were intentional in recognizing and valuing the expertise of grantees and other stakeholders and ensuring that they had a voice in evaluation design and methods, and that we were attentive to the contexts programs were operating in and how this impacted different populations.
ICH’s evaluation began with a planning period from April-July 2021, in which we worked with the Steering Committee overseeing the grant program and an Evaluation Advisory Committee (EAC) made up of state grantees and subgrantees to develop a theory of change and an evaluation plan. We continued to work with our EAC throughout the evaluation to incorporate community input and to elevate the priorities and perspectives of program stakeholders with diverse experiences. During the design phase, we also conducted a landscape scan, consisting of a literature review and a series of expert interviews, to help us develop an in-depth understanding of how scholars and practitioners in the field conceptualize community power and its components. Over the course of the program, we conducted three rounds of group interviews with the state teams, and facilitated quarterly reflection sessions with the Steering Committee. State teams were also asked to complete a social network analysis (SNA) survey for three time points, which ICH used to better understand the developing relationships among grantee organizations. We also worked closely with six state programs as case studies to delve more deeply into the details of their experience with Voices. Our findings were used throughout the Voices program to inform RWJF and other Voices stakeholders about grantees’ work, their experiences with the grant structure and technical assistance, and the overall impact of the program:
- Year 1 – initial report
- Year 1 – grantee interview findings
- Year 2 – evaluation report
- Year 3 – evaluation report
ICH is now evaluating the next round of the Voices program, which you can read about here.