Between 2009 and 2013, the Wallace Foundation funded a management consulting firm, Fiscal Management Associates, to provide the 25 nonprofit organizations with one of two models of professional development: (1) a customized model that included substantial individual consulting and group learning for organizations’ leaders or (2) a model that provided primarily group learning opportunities. The foundation also provided grants to the 25 organizations designed to offset some of their costs. Simultaneously, the Wallace Foundation funded the Donors Forum, a Chicago-based organization, which worked to improve the public funding environment for nonprofit organizations in Illinois.

Researchers conducted a long-term evaluation of the initiative gauging how the organizations changed over the four years, what this change cost, and how the public funding environment changed. The evaluation investigates the lessons learned from the initiative about strengthening the financial management of nonprofit organizations and also, more generally, about how to improve organizational capabilities.