Deepening Engagement for Lasting Impact: A Framework for Measuring Media Performance and Results

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation are committed to helping their media partners assess the impact and results of their work in order to remain competitive in the field and make data-driven decisions. As part of this effort, the Gates Foundation engaged LFA to plan, facilitate, and document a series of convenings in December 2011 and 2012 to inform the development of a framework for measuring the impact and engagement of media work. This framework is designed to assist media funders and grantees in understanding their audiences and their behavior, and to more effectively assess the impact and results of their work. Download the Report

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Measuring Public Media's Impact

The National Center for Media Engagement (NCME) commissioned this paper to establish a better understanding of public media’s current practices and possible paths forward for assessing impact. NCME enlisted LFA to conduct an environmental scan designed to identify and understand tools available to help public media organizations measure the impact, and demonstrate the value, of their work. Specifically, NCME asked LFA to (1) Determine if there are common impact measurement frameworks in use in public media; (2) Inventory currently available impact measurement tools and frameworks; (3) Document promising practices for measuring public media impact; and (4) Develop recommendations for increasing the effectiveness and usefulness of impact measurement in public media organizations. Download the Report

An Interim Review of the Knight News Challenge

The Knight News Challenge is a five-year media innovation contest designed to reward new ideas for gathering, sharing and using local news and information. Knight Foundation launched the contest in September 2006, at a time when the news industry was in great flux, as part of an effort to encourage greater experimentation in the field of journalism and media. To date, Knight Foundation has pledged nearly $22 million to four sets of annual contest winners in the search for bold community news and media experiments. LFA conducted an interim assessment and produced a cross-cutting evaluation report as well as a series of seven cluster reports on different groups of 2007-2008 winners. Download the Report, or the individual cluster reports: Field Building, Mobile Platforms, Innovative Tools, Citizen Media, Local News, News Games, and Public Media.