Supporting Nonprofits to Strengthen Evidence-based Programs

Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) is excited to welcome our second cohort of Evidence for Change fellows to Stanford’s campus this week. Evidence for Change is a 10-month fellowship program for California-based nonprofit organizations seeking to use evidence and data to drive the impact of their programs.

The 2025 cohort consists of eight organizations working across the state on a range of pressing social issues, and grappling with big questions as to how they can enhance their mission-driven programs and services.

Congratulations and Welcome to:

• Beyond Emancipation
• Community Services Agency
• Hack the Hood
• Horizons at San Francisco Friends School
• Love Never Fails
• Oakland Literacy Coalition
• Resilience Orange County
• The Diversity Center

Teams from each organization will spend three days on Stanford’s campus to kickstart the fellowship. The cohort’s initial time together will focus on developing actionable theories of change, identifying organization-specific learning questions, and developing plans for how to gather the data and evidence required to address each team’s particular learning questions. The group will also explore best practices for developing and encouraging the learning culture needed to implement this type of focused learning and experimenting within their broader nonprofit organization. 

In the first year of the Evidence for Change fellowship, SIL learned a great deal about how best to support the varied needs of local nonprofits. We are excited to put those learnings into action as we continue to pilot the practitioner-facing fellowship this year. After this week’s gathering closes, the eight teams will return to their organizations to implement their evidence and data plans with the support of a $50,000 grant and one-on-one mentorship from the Evidence for Change teaching team: Sarah Hopwood, Lindsey Mae, and Misha Schmidt.