The Judith Gueron Fund for Methodological Innovation in Social Policy Research was established in 2004 by MDRC and six founding partners, the Annie E. Casey, Rockefeller, Jerry Lee, Spencer, William T. Grant, and Grable Foundations, in honor of Gueron's legacy of promoting high standards in social policy research. Gueron served as President of MDRC from 1986 to 2004.

The Fund will help advance MDRC's work on new methodologies for developing evidence that informs policy and improves practice. These include the use of:

• quasi-experimental methods to measure program effects when random assignment methods are not feasible;
• mixed qualitative and quantitative methods to document how programs are implemented;
• multilevel statistical models to combine findings across randomized studies in order to explore the linkages between program implementation and effects;
• instrumental variables methods with randomized experiments to study the causal paths by which programs create their effects; and
• randomization of intact groups, instead of individuals, to study programs that are focused on organizations or places.

MDRC's progress to date in these areas will be described in Learning More from Social Experiments: Evolving Analytic Approaches, edited by Howard Bloom, to be published in summer 2005 by the Russell Sage Foundation.

The Judith Gueron Fund will be used to support such future activities as: (1) new work to extend these quantitative and qualitative methods MDRC has pioneered and to disseminate them widely, (2) a minority scholars program of internships, new hires, and visiting scholar opportunities, (3) a series of methodological seminars by prominent scholars, and (4) methodological advisory panels to help guide MDRC's future research. Additional information about these activities will be announced as they are developed.

To contribute to the Judith Gueron Fund, visit the Support the Judith Gueron Fund page.