Clients and Projects
Robertson Consulting Group has many repeat clients - a sign of satisfaction with both the quality and the service of the firm. Our clients include community foundations, United Way affiliates, county government, and nonprofit organizations. In addition, Robertson Consulting Group has worked on evaluation projects with the University of South Florida and Florida Gulf Coast University (including the federally-funded Transition to Teach program).
While Robertson Consulting Group provides evaluation services to a variety of clients throughout the nonprofit and government sector, there are some areas where we have developed special expertise. These include community assessments, disaster evaluation, evaluating community-wide initiatives and collaborations, impact reporting, and leadership development. A few examples are highlighted below:
Gulf Coast Community Foundation: Lessons Learned
After Hurricane Charley (as well as Frances and Jeanne), the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice commissioned a Lessons Learned project to determine how the nonprofit community had responded to the 2004 hurricane season. The project included a five-county online stakeholder survey, draft report, listening sessions in three counties, and a final report that outlined ideas for improving response to future disasters.
Lee County: Human Services Council Strategic Plan
The project included bi-annual data collection for the Human Services Council Strategic Plan. Data includes consistently collected indicators in the areas of community demographics; alcohol, drugs, and mental health; health; children's health; children and youth; juvenile justice; and seniors. This document includes graphical representation of the data in as well as contextual data from the community resource team. The report is used to track progress against goals and to assist other funders in identifying where to best spend resources.
United Way of Sarasota County: Future of Philanthropy
This project has two objectives: to collect data on the current status of philanthropy in Sarasota County along four dimensions and to stimulate positive change. Phase I of this project included a review of literature on the four dimensions. We identified typical quantitative data and an assessment of qualitative studies. In addition, key informant interviews were used to determine best practices. Robertson Consulting Group then facilitated the stakeholder group as they identified information needs and appropriate methodologies.
Gulf Coast Community Foundation: Building Better Boards
Robertson Consulting Group is the evaluator on Building Better Boards initiative in three states. The Building Better Boards initiative is a community-wide leadership development effort. The evaluation consists of pre and post board online self-assessments, post-session participant training evaluations, phone interviews, observations, and online interim surveys. As part of this project Robertson Consulting Group manages the online self-assessments; to date, over 2,000 board members have taken the assessment.
United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta: Neighbors Helping Neighbors
United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta commissioned Robertson Consulting Group to conduct a study of the effectiveness of its $11 million dollar initiative to resettle Hurricane Katrina evacuees and also to determine the current needs of evacuees in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The study had four major components: a document review, an online stakeholder survey, 21 key stakeholder interviews, and a mail survey of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Study results were presented in two reports: Lessons Learned and Evacuee Status.