Services
The Johnson Center team is deeply experienced and passionate about helping you use research to make data- and equity-informed decisions. Services include:
- Applied research projects that bridge the gap between scholarship and practice
- Original and secondary data collection, analysis, and interpretation
- Field scans to determine key players, programs, and geographies
- Literature reviews to inform program design
Our clients have access to a variety of resources to enhance their projects, including software to track grant outcomes, tools to visualize community and program data, and peer-reviewed publications like The Foundation Review.
We hold 30 years of data on nonprofits nationwide.
Evaluation should play a critical role in every stage of your program and practice. From planning to implementation, we can help you identify and analyze information and data to strengthen and advance your impact.
Our custom services enable you to:
- Use data as a tool to advance your strategy
- Assess and inform your long-term grantmaking or program strategy
- Communicate about your work to key stakeholders
- Develop an organizational strategy that incorporates evaluation and continuous learning
The Johnson Center was an early champion and partner in the path towards equitable evaluation. Their leadership towards a 21st century evaluation paradigm is a great demonstration of their values.”
Jara Dean-Coffey
Director, Equitable Evaluation Initiative
Jara Dean-Coffey
Director, Equitable Evaluation Initiative
Your experiments and innovations can give your peers a boost and help speed the work of social good. We can develop practical, teachable case studies to capture your story and engage others in real-world learning. Examples include:
- Document a history of family giving and multi-generational teamwork
- Examine key decision points in a grantmaking or program development process
- Capture your community’s plan for or response to change
The Johnson Center works with nonprofits and foundations of all types to make case studies available for all. We can also use these cases as the center of a workshop for your own staff — or for a broader audience, with a focus on how to apply the lessons learned within their own organizations.
Featured Cases & Partners
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Effective, mission-driven strategies can help your organization and community incorporate learning and overcome hurdles. As you work to create or refine your culture and practice, we can help you:
- Develop theories of change and logic models
- Work with your board and leadership to refine your program or grantmaking strategy
- Plan and manage capacity building programs to benefit your grantees or community
- Design hiring, on-boarding, and training programs to develop and support staff
Thank you for creating a space for us to reflect, dream, innovate, and define who we are in the GVSU Career Center! You’ve made ‘planning’ an inspiring exercise and not something that feels clunky and unmotivating.”
Lori Staggs
Associate Director, Grand Valley State University Career Center
Lori Staggs
Associate Director, Grand Valley State University Career Center
Data offers a powerful way to understand communities and regions. Our experienced team can help you gather, analyze, and visualize data to make informed decisions about:
- Refining or planning new strategies
- Giving more effectively
- Planning for an uncertain future
- Understanding change over time
We build dashboards and synthesize data to present national, regional, and local information in ways that are both easy to understand and easy to access.