Some organizations and institutions we have supported

Appetite for Change
​Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota
Carlson Family Foundation
Education Evolving
Greater Twin Cities United Way
Hennepin County Human Services & Public Health Department
Ignite Afterschool
The Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota
Mathematics Education Learning and Development Lab, University of Wisconsin
McKnight Foundation
​Minnesota Opera
​Minnesota Private College Fund
Mirror Ink
Nashville Opera
Olson Middle School, Minneapolis Public Schools
Patrick Henry High School, Minneapolis Public Schools
The Phipps Center for the Arts
​PYC Arts & Tech High School, Minneapolis Public Schools
Spice Kitchen
University YMCA
Wilder Research, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
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PROJECT SPOTLIGHTS & PERSPECTIVES 

American Evaluation Association 365 Blog: Read our blog about Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building for Philanthropic Organizations and Their Grantees While Flipping the Orthodoxies Around Evaluation that are Incongruent with Equity Work.

The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation: Drs. Ava Yang-Lewis and Mark Lewis served as the developmental evaluators for two Minneapolis Public Schools in a six-year investment by The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation. When the initiative ended, the Foundation gathered with 45 educators, funders, and policy advocates to reflect on their six years of support for the two schools. Read Reflecting on a Six-Year Investment in Northside Schools that includes ACT Research's role and how "investing in developmental evaluation alongside the grants provided schools with valuable support."  Read the full case study here: Transformative Collaboration: A Case Study of a Community, Educator, and Foundation Partnership for Student-Centered Learning Innovation in North Minneapolis.
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Nashville Opera: All-Access Opera evolved from a 5-year collaboration between Nashville Opera and Vanderbilt University’s TRIAD (Treatment and Research Institute of Autism Spectrum Disorders), in which supports were developed to enhance Nashville Opera’s annual educational tour to schools. Nashville Opera then partnered with opera companies around the U.S. and trained staff at these companies on using the toolkits. ACT Research worked with Nashville Opera to test and measure the toolkit’s effectiveness at these multi-sites by helping create surveys, poll program participants, and analyze results. Learn more about this work on Nashville Opera's All Access Opera webpage or read the white paper.

The School Transformation Collaborative + The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation / Minneapolis Foundation: During the height of COVID-19, ACT Research created a Parent Family Distance Learning Survey in partnership with The School Transformation Collaborative (funded by The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation / Minneapolis Foundation) to gather in-depth feedback from nearly 100 Twin Cities area parents. The survey focused on listening closely to families from different backgrounds, especially those with lower incomes. We used open-ended survey questions and post-survey focus groups to reveal deeper insights into family experiences. Over half of the families we heard from were Black, Asian, Native American, or Hispanic, and 59% said they qualified for free or reduced-price lunch.