The Marin Community Foundations' Thriving Families Initiative (TFI) aims to support low-income families and strengthen inter-agency partnerships in Marin County. TFI began in 2002, investing $12.5 million in sixteen agencies to achieve their goals. TFI ended in June, 2008. In it's final phase the Initiative focused on the following priority areas: income enhancement; responsible fatherhood; family reunification and community integration; leadership and civic engagement; and inter-agency collaboration.
Abundantia Consulting served as the evaluator throughout the Initiative. Working closely with grantees and the Marin Community Foundation, data collection occurred on a quarterly basis and enabled Abundantia to monitor and document the impacts of TFI through a project-specific website (the TFI Logic Map), progress reports, and final end-of-project reports. The Abundantia evaluation team provided TFI with ongoing information about populations served, services provided, and net impact across grantees; technical assistance with evaluation indicators, methods and logic modeling; provided recommendations for phase IV; and identified lessons learned.
In the final 6 months, Abundantia conducted a "50 Families Study" using a stratified random sample of families analyzing their trajectory towards thriving. In addition, a professional video was produced which was designed to complement the study. A final boxed set of the DVD and website housing all the information collected throughout the evaluation will be created and provided to stakeholders.
