Resources & Reports

We recognize the different roles stakeholders play, and therefore share information in ways that are useful to individual partners—whether it be for informing strategy or tactical decisions, improving programs, or communicating key outcomes or impacts. Some of our strategies include facilitated discussions on findings, data memos, infographics that highlight key findings, and thorough reports synthesizing information across multiple data collection efforts. We also prepare presentations and reports that are user-friendly, engaging, and provide opportunities for participants to reflect on findings and share recommendations based on data.

View Our Publications:

Please click on the links below to obtain copies of recent MAI project reports and resources.

Youth Development & Mentoring

Youth Arts Initiative 

Raising the Barre and Stretching the Canvas: Implementing High-Quality Arts Programming in a National Youth Serving Organization, a study conducted by Research for Action and MAI explores the efforts of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), a federation of more than 4,000 clubhouses around the country, in the first three years of Wallace’s Youth Arts Initiative. This study found that large, multidisciplinary organizations can establish high-quality arts programs, but they must navigate some cultural and organizational change to do so, quality youth arts programs in large, national organizations need guidance from the central office, and professional teaching artists are necessary to create high-quality youth arts programs. But they will need training and support to work effectively with young people, and large, culminating events keep participants interested in youth arts programs and help attract others.

Designing for Engagement: The Experiences of Tweens in the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth Arts Initiative is the second of four implementation reports exploring the efforts of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America (BGCA). This study reports on the experiences of youth in the Youth Arts Initiative. 

 

Amachi 

The purpose of the Amachi Multi-State Grant (2014-2016) report was to identify successes and challenges associated with Amachi’s mentoring enhancements. Since the enhancements were implemented in the Amachi Multi-State Initiative, funded by OJJDP through mentor training, our study focused on the implementation and utility of the enhancement trainings. Mentoring program staff generally found the trainings helpful and reported that the online, micro e-learning modules worked to engage mentors. The mentors we interviewed were also receptive to the training, but many did not feel that it enhanced the quality of their mentoring relationship.   

Workforce Development

Evaluation of the Work Progress Program

The Work Progress Program (WPP) was launched in 2012 as a partnership between the NYC Human Resources Administration (HRA) and the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity (NYC Opportunity). These organizations recognized an opportunity to supplement the work of community-based organizations (CBOs) with young people ages 16 to 24 by funding an add-on subsidized job component to their existing youth programming. Our report describes both the broader picture of the benefits and challenges of WPP for participating CBOs, as well as the outcomes for program participants from a sample of sites during 2012-2019.   

Education & STEAM

Bootstrap 

I Program My Own Videogames: A Snapshot of Bootstrap’s Student and Teacher Outcomes, is one of three reports that were tailored to Bootstrap’s stakeholders; this one was designed for potential funders. As a growing data-driven program, Bootstrap set out to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of its model and implementation approach to determine if the program was achieving its goals, and to illuminate where the program should be tweaked to better meet teachers' and students' needs.    

Elev8 

Maximizing Opportunities and Diminishing Obstacles: Adaptation in Elev8's Full-Service Community Schools, shares lessons about how Elev8 adapted over time to maintain its relevancy in the face of various environmental factors and changes. These lessons are pertinent to the wide array of funders, policymakers, and organizations currently developing or implementing community schools locally. 

 

The Elev8 Final Report, produced by MAI and RFA, aims to summarize what we know about Elev8’s structure, accomplishments, and implementation for the field from this body of literature.

 

 

Out-of-School Time in Elev8 Community Schools: A First Look at Participation and its Unique Contribution to Students’ Experiences in School, takes a preliminary look inside the “black box” of community schools, providing important information to the field about the relative value of OST within a community school model.

 

 

The Evaluation of Elev8: Research In Action slide deck, presented at the Coalition for Community Schools' National Forum in 2016, showcases MAI's developmental approach to the evaluation of Elev8, and makes a case for why it's important for researchers and programs to focus on the "right" evaluation questions at the "right" time.

Community Initiatives

Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center Costs and Benefits Study

The "Economic Halo Effect" of the Ray and Joan Kroc Corps and Community Centers is a report commissioned by the Salvation Army, in which researchers at Partners for Sacred Places and McClanahan Associates, Inc., quantified the annual positive social and economic impact these centers are creating for and in their communities. The study included the twenty-five Kroc Centers that had been open for at least six months by the end of 2014. The report is based on more than 100 interviews with staff, officers, participants, volunteers, and community leaders; surveys of a representative sample of 1,580 patrons; and a review of operations-related documentation.

Play Everywhere Challenge

The Play Everywhere Challenge Final Report, produced by MAI, was designed to identify the successes and challenges in the Challenge process and grantee play space builds. This report documents the perceptions of short-term outcomes (e.g., user perceptions of whether the Challenge increased play in their communities, whether the play space was sustainable, and whether grantees had plans for scaling). We also aimed to learn how communities are experiencing the play spaces through the Challenge.

Crime & Violence Reduction

The Choice is Yours (TCY)

The Choice is Yours: Early Implementation of a Diversion Program for Felony Offenders report, was designed to identify strengths and weaknesses in TCY’s implementation model. This report presents analyses of qualitative data from interviews with staff members, stakeholders, and participants to highlight program implementation and challenges to achieving fidelity to the model.    

 

The Choice is Yours: Benefits of Diversion for Nonviolent Felony Offenders is a final report offering quantitative data on recidivism for participants and comparison youth, which was summarized through tables of descriptive statistics, as well as tables presenting results of survival analyses. 

 

Evaluation & Performance Management Capacity Building

Youth Development Outcomes, Indicators and Targets Project 

MAI’s publication, A Guide for Youth-Serving Nonprofits to Developing Outcomes, Indicators and Targets for Use in Performance Management provides information youth-serving nonprofits can use to brainstorm indicators and benchmarks for their outcomes.