Project Spotlights
View some of our recent work
Evaluation
Nourishing Austin: An Evaluation of the Austin Fresh Grant
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Austin Fresh is a collaboratively funded grant program that endeavors to increase access to healthy food, enhance land access for food production, and expand food and nutrition education for residents of Chicago’s Austin neighborhood. The program began with an initial five-year commitment of $ 1million annually from the Builders Initiative, The Christopher Family Foundation, The Lumpkin Family Foundation, Food:Land:Opportunity, and the Walter S. Mander Foundation. LifeSpring was engaged to conduct an evaluation of the grant and help funders assess whether the impact of their investments warranted a continuation of the program.
Evaluation
Menthol Matters: A Snapshot of Community Perspectives on Tobacco Harm
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In 2023, Stan Martin Consulting (SMC), the Tobacco Action Group, and other anti-tobacco advocates mobilized around banning the sale of menthol tobacco in Buffalo, NY, but lacked data on community perspectives regarding a ban. Through funding from The Center for Black Health & Equity, SMC engaged LifeSpring as a research partner to lead the development of community surveys that would gauge the community’s stance on a ban and its perceived impacts.
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LifeSpring guided SMC through determining research objectives and designing questions that would map to each objective. The final objectives of the communithy survey were to identify menthol tobacco use, identify perceptions of tobacco’s effects, identify knowledge gaps, and gauge level of support for a menthol ban. The survey design was informed by a review of relevant research studies already conducted on menthol tobacco perceptions.
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Community members want to mitigate menthol’s impact on the Black community; however, residents also want to be in control of their own destiny and require more reassurance that a menthol ban is in the community’s best interest. Anti-tobacco advocates will use the results to inform their organizing strategy, create more opportunities for information sharing, secure more funding for community outreach activities, and present evidence of community support when advocating for the menthol ban.
Dashboards/Scorecards
Company Progress Dashboard
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The HR team for a California-based software enterprise was faced with the challenge of providing concise, actionable insights pertaining to their strategic development trajectory, while relying on time-consuming manual tracking methods within traditional presentations tools, such as PowerPoint. The HR team brought in LifeSpring to help streamline their processes while enhancing efficacy.
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LifeSpring worked with the HR management team to identify key performance indicators critical for executive decision making and designed processes to extract data from disparate internal company platforms into one central location.
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The implementation of automation has empowered the HR team to efficiently track both individual team progress and overarching company objectives. Their new dashboard serves as a strategic compass, allowing them to determine goals that are at risk of falling behind so that they can promptly adjust their strategy.
Dashboards/Scorecards
Chicago Independent Media Alliance Scorecard
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In 2024, Public Narrative acquired the Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) and underwent an extensive visioning process to ensure alignment among CIMA outlets and other stakeholders in their respective visions for the nature of their cooperative relationship. LifeSpring was brought on to develop a scorecard that would serve as an evaluative tool to measure progress in the administration, operation, and funding of CIMA.
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LifeSpring analyzed focus group and survey results from CIMA outlets and philanthropic organizations to develop a weighting system and final scoring process to assess performance across nine key categories.
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The scorecard provides a baseline measurement on the performance of three key groups: (1) Public Narrative as the administrator of CIMA; (2) CIMA outlets as a community of collaborative partners; and (3) Funders whose philanthropic contributions support the work. Through annual performance monitoring, these groups can assess their progress over time and make improvements to function more effectively as a collective.
Publications
Equitable food value chains through collaborative action [in an inequitable landscape]: Insights from Buffalo, NY
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This article, published in the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development (JAFSCD), explores a case study of the Buffalo Community Food System Grant, funded by United Way of Buffalo and Erie County. Drawing on community coalition action theory, the authors’ findings suggest that philanthropic endeavors to promote food equity can be strengthened by employing cohort-based fundings models that link organizations working across sectors and food system domains. Further, they point out that efforts aimed at addressing food inequity must also fundamentally address the broader power dynamics that underly those injustices, highlighting the need for policy change in conjunction with philanthropic and nonprofit work.
Read the full article on the JAFSCD website here.
Publications
Ethical Lessons from Yesteryear: A History of Black Buffalo’s Struggle for Food and Equity in the United States
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This chapter is featured in ‘Planning for Equitable Urban Agriculture,’ a book that explores ethical questions and challenges in urban agriculture planning. Ethical Lessons from Yesteryear explores how community members have historically adopted formal and informal means of eliminating disparities in the food system and the ethics behind their practice. Utilizing Buffalo, New York as a case study, the chapter explores the efforts of residents who envisioned food as a means to transform the sociopolitical landscape of the city. It issues a clarion call to readers, urging deeper exploration of local histories and the intricate forces shaping their respective foodscapes. By better understanding the challenges that shaped our current food environments, scholars and activists can design more effective strategies for tackling the issue of food insecurity in our communities.
Strategic Plan
Organizational Development Planning
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A statewide coalition that had achieved major political victories as volunteer run organization began to express visions of what more could be accomplished as a formally organized body.
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LifeSpring partnered with Community Allies to lead a multi-phased organizational planning effort. LifeSpring guided the team through targeted discovery activities, including a structural and financial review, surveys, and stakeholder interviews, to assess the coalition's current state and identify opportunities for growth. We conducted an external scan to evaluate best practices in coalition governance, explore partnership opportunities, and identify gaps in the advocacy landscape.
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By facilitating interactive convenings to combine membership knowledge with external research, we developed an organizational plan that helped CCCI prioritize strategies for strengthening their advocacy and programming, ultimately voting to seek legal incorporation.
Strategic Plan
CCLF Strategic Plan
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Having successfully navigated challenges that arose from COVID-19 and closing out their existing strategic plan, CCLF was in need of a new strategic plan that would guide the company's efforts for the next four years.
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LifeSpring partnered with Community Allies to engage Chicago Community Loan Fund in an 8-month long strategic planning process. LifeSpring conducted in-depth analysis of company financials, board and staff surveys, environmental scans of community needs, GIS mapping of community areas of opportunity, and a competitor analysis to help CCLF think through what new or revised program offerings would best serve the community over the next four years.
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The final strategic plan and implementation roadmap leveraged internal and external research to chart a course for strengthening the company's internal structure, allowing it to navigate oncoming uncertainty and maintain sustainable success.