Strategic Advising and Technical Assistance from RFA
While much of RFA’s work takes the form of original research, we also provide support for mission-aligned partners to help leverage data themselves in support of continuous quality improvement. We call this work “Strategic Advising and Technical Assistance.” As we describe below, this work can take many forms, but the ultimate goal is to empower you to use data in service of your own mission.
Our Approach and Service Areas
We approach all our work, including Strategic Advising & Technical Assistance, as a partnership. We meet you where you are to figure out what information or support would benefit your organization and/or programs, and how to collect and use it. Our support might look like customized tool development, individualized coaching or advising, and/or group workshops or trainings.
Whether you’re trying to tell the story of the impact your work is having on the communities or inform internal decision-making processes, having the right information in an accessible format is key. To help you get that accessible information, we provide a range of services customized based on our partners’ needs and capacity, including but not limited to:
- Strategic advising on program quality and impact,
- Development of data collection instruments,
- Audit and advisement on existing data infrastructure, and
- Support using and making sense of data.
The table below describes an example of RFA’s past work in each service area and potential end results of work in that area.
| Service | Motivating Question | End Result(s) | Example from Past Work | |
| Partner | Support Provided | |||
| Strategic Advising on Program Quality and Impact | How can we enhance our program quality and impact? | · Clear descriptions of program components
· Co-developed tools to assess and refine implementation (e.g. observational rubrics) · Strategies for improving program quality based on best practices in the field |
Education focused non-profit | RFA studied the rollout of an existing program in a new city and developed a set of logic models for each of the primary components of the initiative. The logic models detailed the inputs, activities, outputs, and intended impacts of the initiative and were developed based on interviews with key program leaders as well as the literature around the initiative and best practices in the field. |
| Development of data collection instruments | How can I collect data to understand X? | Easy-to-use, robust data collection tool(s) (e.g., survey, spreadsheet, interview protocol, etc.) | Out-of-school time provider | A partner needed an organized way to manage participation data across multiple sites while keeping an eye towards retaining youth in the program. We developed an online tool for daily data entry which helped them meet regular reporting requirements and provided real-time diagnostic tables that could help identify students who were at risk of leaving the program. |
| Audit and advisement on data infrastructure | I have lots of data, but how can I make it actionable? | Concrete recommendations to improve data usability | Low-cost private school | We worked with a partner to understand its current data infrastructure (including what data they were collecting and how it was housed). We then provided guidance on how to consistently define data points, when each should be collected, and what needed to be changed to make the data usable across departments. |
| Support using and making sense of data | What is this data telling me? | · Ready-to-use data analysis tools (e.g., a spreadsheet with analytic tables and graphs; dashboards built in existing data systems)
· Skill-building training and/or coaching sessions on use of data |
Out-of-school time provider | We worked with a partner that wanted to better understand where their participants were excelling in school and where they might need more help. We built a tool that aggregated and summarized data they were already collecting to allow the partner to track the educational outcomes of their participants over time and how those outcomes differed by degree of program participation. |
Who We Work With
Research for Action (RFA) is an independent, non-profit educational research organization with a mission of using culturally responsive and community-informed research to promote racial equity and social justice. We partner with mission-aligned nonprofits, school districts, community organizations, and funders nationwide to measure impact and to promote data-driven decision making.
We leverage the knowledge from more than 30 years of RFA’s first-hand experiences in the education field (from early childhood through postsecondary and in both formal and informal learning ) to inform our TA work. We strive to understand your needs and pain points, developing with you the tools and actions needed to reach your goals.
Contact Us
If you are interested in partnering with our Strategic Advising & Technical Assistance team or would like to speak with us to better understand if you would benefit from our services, please reach out to info@researchforaction.org. We work closely with mission-aligned partner organizations to address any budget constraints.