Strategic Advising and Technical Assistance from RFA
Research for Action (RFA) is an independent, non-profit educational research organization with a mission of using culturally responsive and community-informed research to promote racial equity and social justice. For 30 years, we have conducted research and developed partnerships in Philadelphia and nationally to strengthen public schools, postsecondary institutions, and community organizations; provide research-based recommendations to policymakers, practitioners and the public at the local, state and national levels; and enrich the civic and community dialogue about public education.
While much of our work in service to that mission takes the form of original research, we also provide support for mission-aligned partners to help them ask and answer research questions themselves. We call this work “Strategic Advising and Technical Assistance.” As we describe below, this work can take many forms, but the ultimate goal is to empower you to use data in service of your own mission.
Our Areas of Expertise
With 30 years of experience, RFA’s research portfolio features engagement with a diverse set of partners in the full range of the educational field, from early childhood through postsecondary and in both formal and informal educational settings. RFA has a seasoned team of mixed-methods researchers who have experience at every stage of the research process. RFA researchers have developed and refined countless logic models and data collection instruments, including surveys, interview or observation protocols, and spreadsheet or form-based tools. We leverage the knowledge from our first-hand research experience to inform our Technical Assistance work so that we can understand a partner’s needs or pain points and develop tools or suggested actions to help reach their goals.
Our Approach to Strategic Advising & Technical Assistance
We approach all our work, including our Strategic Advising & Technical Assistance as a partnership. We meet you where you are to figure out what information would benefit your organization and/or programs, and how to collect and use it. Whether you’re trying to tell the story of the impact your work is having on the communities you serve or inform your internal decision-making processes, having the right information in an accessible format is key.
To help you get that accessible information, we provide a range of services customized based on our partners’ needs and capacity, including but not limited to:
- Theory of Change development or revision,
- Development of data collection instruments,
- Audit of data infrastructures, and
- Design of analysis tools.
The table below describes an example of RFA’s past work in each service area.
| Service | Motivating Question | Partner | Support Provided | End Result |
| Theory of Change development / revision | What is X program trying to impact and how? | Education focused non-profit | RFA studied the rollout of an existing program in a new city and developed a set of logic models for each of the primary components of the initiative. The logic models were developed based on the literature around the initiative and best practices in the field, as well as interviews with key program leaders reflecting the strategies used in the new setting. | Logic models detailing the inputs, activities, outputs, and intended impacts of the initiative in the localized context |
| Develop data collection instruments | How can I collect data to understand Y? | Out-of-school time provider | A partner needed an organized way to manage participation data across multiple sites while keeping an eye towards retaining youth in the program. We developed an online tool for daily data entry which helped them meet regular reporting requirements and provided real-time diagnostic tables that could help identify students who were at risk of leaving the program. | Easy-to-use, robust data collection tool(s) (e.g., survey, spreadsheet, etc.) |
| Audit data infrastructure | I have lots of data, but how can I make it actionable? | Low-cost private school | We worked with a partner to understand its current data infrastructure (including what data they were collecting and how it was housed). We then provided guidance on how to consistently define data points, when each should be collected, and what needed to be changed to make the data usable across departments. | Concrete recommendations to improve data usability |
| Design analysis tools | What is this data telling me? | Out-of-school time provider | We worked with a partner that wanted to better understand where their participants were excelling in school and where they might need more help. We built a tool that aggregated and summarized data they were already collecting to allow the partner to track the educational outcomes of their participants over time and how those outcomes differed by degree of program participation. | Ready-to-use data analysis tool (e.g., spreadsheet including analytic tables and graphs) |
Who We Work With
RFA partners with nonprofits, school districts, community organizations, and funders nationwide to measure impact and to promote data-driven decision making.
Contact Us
If you are interested in partnering with our Strategic Advising & Technical Assistance team or would like to speak with us to better understand if you would benefit from our services, please reach out to info@researchforaction.org. We work closely with mission-aligned partner organizations to address any budget constraints.