The Kaleidoscope Project, funded by the John Rex Endowment, ensures that every young child in Wake County will experience nurturing relationships and supportive environments that promote their social and emotional well-being. Partners for Impact has been evaluating this community change initiative and is providing program planning services to the John Rex Endowment as it redefines its grantmaking process with an emphasis on community participation in planning and awarding funding. We are excited to be a part of the current phase of this project that is directly addressing racial equity in philanthropy by shifting the decision making power to the community.

During 2019, Partners for Impact was hired to undertake an evaluation of the project. The evaluation team sought to answer two main questions: Was the Kaleidoscope Project effective in disseminating the best practices in Wake County? What facilitated the adoption of the best practices?

The Partners for Impact team adapted the social ecological model to build a proposed framework for the evaluation of the Kaleidoscope Project. Four key levels of action were observed in the initial examination of the data: the individual, the organization, the system, and the community. Change strategies evident in the first three of these levels will lead to the community change described in the vision of the Kaleidoscope Project: all children in Wake County experience nurturing relationships.

Kaleidoscope Project Final Report

The Kaleidoscope Model of Community Change through Best Practices

Infographic by Partners for Impact Design Consultant Fiona W. Dunn

Client:

The Kaleidoscope Project (funded by the John Rex Endowment)

Services Provided:

Evaluate

The Problem/Challenge:

The Kaleidoscope Project, designed to ensure that young children in Wake County experience nurturing relationships and supportive environments that promote their social and emotional well-being, required an evaluation. Partners for Impact was brought into the project to complete an evaluation of the project.

Our Process:

Partners for Impact designed an evaluation process to assess the impact that the Kaleidoscope Project had on the impact of places and spaces where children go. The process included interviews, focus groups, and simple questionnaires/surveys in order to obtain different perspectives for the final report.

End Result:

The evaluation by Partners for Impact allowed The Kaleidoscope Project to understand their  best practices and distribute their findings associated with improving places and spaces where children go. What emerged in the final analysis was an interrelationship between a shifting mindset where childrens’ perceptions were placed at the center, the modifications to spaces, and actual changes in behaviors or interactions between children and their caregivers. 

Continued Success:

The Kaleidoscope Project is entering a new phase in 2022. For the first time, the John Rex Endowment has made a commitment to fund a project like this for five years. There is a focus on racial inequities and the systems that perpetuate injustice, and activities that disrupt these inequities, such as community-based philanthropy. Over the course of the five years, Partners for Impact continued to be the evaluation consultant.

Kaleidoscope Project Initial Evaluation:

The Kaleidoscope Project was a four-year, $2 million project funded by the John Rex Endowment to ensure that every young child in Wake County experiences nurturing relationships and supportive environments that promote their social and emotional well-being. The Kaleidoscope Project is built on two big ideas: 

 

The places where young children (0 – 8) spend time can have a lifelong impact on their social and emotional well-being.  
The relationships children have with each other and adults can build their resilience, give them the tools they need when times are difficult and arm them with confidence as they grow into adulthood.

 

In choosing sites with which to work, the Kaleidoscope Project went beyond spaces designed for children such as daycares and child development centers and partnered with agencies where parents and caregivers have to be with their children. This includes organizations serving families who are homeless and Wake County Human Services. The staff connected with service providers and other professionals whose work intersects with families experiencing trauma as well as  architects, designers, and builders who focus on the design and use of space.

 

The Partners for Impact team adapted the social ecological model1 to build a proposed framework for the evaluation of the Kaleidoscope Project. Four key levels of action were observed in the initial examination of the data: the individual, the organization, the system, and the community. Change strategies evident in the first three of these levels will lead to the community change described in the vision of the Kaleidoscope Project: all children in Wake County experience nurturing relationships. 

 

The evaluation process consisted of several distinct phases. The initial step included reading the original Integrated Plan for the project, reviewing project documents and data from a previous evaluation team, and redesigning the final year of the evaluation for the Kaleidoscope Project. 

 

Second, we hosted two focus groups. The first included stakeholders from across Wake County and the second consisted of staff members of the project sites receiving funding and support from the Kaleidoscope Project. This stage also included interviews with the original steering committee. 

 

In the third phase, participants in the 2018 series of Kaleidoscope Connection Trainings were surveyed and results were reported.  The evaluation team designed a stakeholder survey sent to the entire network of Kaleidoscope Project and reviewed evaluations from 2019 training sponsored by the local Area Health Education Center (AHEC). Results from these two pieces were combined into one report about training not associated with site work. 

 

Finally, the Kaleidoscope Project funded and worked directly with 13 project sites in the four years of the project. Site visits were conducted, including tours and extensive interviews, at the six projects that had been completed. The evaluation coupled the data generated from these site visits with the information obtained from interviews with Kaleidoscope Project staff for an in-depth, though preliminary, report addressing the evaluation questions. 

 

The work culminated in a final report which can be seen here. 
1McLeroy, K. R., Steckler, A. and Bibeau, D. (Eds.) (1988). The social ecology of health promotion interventions. Health Education Quarterly, 15(4):351-377.

Beacon Ridge

After completion of the initial evaluation for the Kaleidoscope Project, Partners for Impact continued to implement the learning from Kaleidoscope with the John Rex Endowment in their Beacon Ridge pilot program.

Client:

John Rex Endowment

Services Provided:

Evaluate, Develop Resources

The Problem/Challenge:

Once the original Kaleidoscope Project was completed a new phase was created that focused on community-based philanthropy. This phase identified a community where low-income head of households were the decision makers in funding projects that improved the community spaces to support their children’s social-emotional development. 

Our Process:

Strategy and Evaluation at the table

End Result:

Case study of Beacon Ridge

Continued Success:

We are entering a third phase of the Kaleidoscope Project that will identify 4-5 communities that will continue exploring the model of community-based philanthropy based on the lessons learned from Beacon Ridge. It has received five years of funding from the John Rex Endowment for this project. 

Beacon Ridge Case Study:

The Beacon Ridge Community is an affordable housing project,owned by DHIC, an affordable housing developer in Wake County. The apartments are available to families whose income is at or below 60% of Wake County’s area median income. It is part of a purpose built community created by Southeast Raleigh Promise, with partners from Wake County Public Schools, and the YMCA. One of DHIC’s properties was part of Phase 1 of The Kaleidoscope Project.

Phase 2 of The Kaleidoscope Project was created to pilot a community-based philanthropy project where those who lived in the community identified priorities and made decisions about how philanthropic support was invested in the community. A planning team made up of John Rex Endowment staff, Kaleidoscope Project staff, Beacon Ridge staff, diversity and equity consultants from Counterpart Consulting, and evaluation consultants from Partners for Impact. This team set the stage for how to approach this project. 

The evaluation team from Partners for Impact brought the lessons from Phase 1 of the project to the planning table. Consultants have worked with the planning team to create a culture of reflection that enables the group to capture ongoing lessons. They participated in meetings with community members of Beacon Ridge as facilitators of continuous learning and observers of the community prioritization process. The evaluation team has created interim reports and will complete a full case study of the project in the fall of 2022.
Beacon Ridge Report