Here are ways we help our clients:

W.K. Kellogg Foundation
W.K. Kellogg Foundation is known for rigorous evaluation. To kick off its new $50 million Food and Society Initiative, the Foundation asked Headwaters to design a five-year cluster evaluation to understand the impact of its new grantmaking program. Working in partnership with the grantees and gleaning lessons learned, the Foundation and Headwaters believe that the grantmaking mission to strengthen urban and rural communities, protect public health, encourage academic institutions to partner with communities, and promote environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture can be better achieved.

The result: Headwaters designed and is implementing a five-year cluster-level evaluation to understand short- and long-term grantmaking lessons to continuously improve the program and operational performance of grantee partners and the Foundation.

Lumpkin Family Foundation
The Lumpkin Family Foundation wanted to ensure that its commitment to environmental grantmaking would continue to be effective. The Foundation asked Headwaters to assess the state of the environment in central and downstate Illinois and make recommendations to shape its future environmental grantmaking.

Headwaters undertook a comprehensive environmental needs assessment focusing on six watersheds and addressing the socio-economic, fiscal and political issues relevant to the area. Headwaters provided an assessment of the organizational capacity to address the priority issues, opportunities for partnership with other funders, a preliminary assessment of Lumpkin's ability to address environmental needs, and recommendations for future grantmaking.

The result: Lumpkin can focus its resources more wisely and strategically to have a significant impact on the environment in the community served.

Pew Charitable Trusts
When Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew) launched a new funding initiative focused on federal foster care policy, they asked The Headwaters Group for assistance. Headwaters helped them identify key states with the non-profit and political capacity to advance foster care policy.

The foster care initiative seeks to move foster children more quickly into safe, permanent families. Pew believes that this goal can be accomplished by: 1) improving the federal foster care financing incentives that currently result in children languishing in foster care; and, 2) making state and local family courts more accountable via judicial policy reforms.

The Headwaters Group reviewed publicly available data about the selected states, consulted with national experts, conducted phone interviews with leading decision makers, and screened potential participating states through site visits. We then recommended which states Pew should consider.

The result: Pew has funded a new organization, Fostering Results, that: 1) provides financial and technical assistance to seven key states for improving their financial and judicial management of foster care; and, 2) supports the efforts of the Pew Charitable Trusts Commission on Children in Foster Care—a national effort to develop consensus on a set of federal foster care finance and judicial reform policies.

The Brainerd Foundation
Paul Brainerd, developer of PageMaker, and the Brainerd Foundation staff, regard grantees and applicants as valued customers. Providing the highest quality customer service is a Foundation value and trademark. To determine if the Foundation was living its value and treating applicants and grantees fairly, professionally, and honestly, the Brainerd Foundation hired The Headwaters Group to assess its grant application process and staff-client relations. Using confidential interviews and a survey, grantees, applicants, and colleagues were asked to evaluate their treatment by the Foundation.

The result: The Foundation learned that its grantmaking program, translated through its staff, reflects its commitment to treating applicants and grantees with respect and serves as a role model and mentor to its funding colleagues. Based on Headwaters' recommendation the Foundation is experimenting with making larger, multi-year grants.

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