A collaborative approach to serving a new ethnic population shows promise, says a recent assessment. Twelve community-based organizations in California’s Central Valley have come together in the Hmong Health Project, funded by The California Endowment (“TCE”). The evaluation’s baseline assessment suggests that the organizations’ complementary strengths will be an asset to the Project’s work.

Early this decade, Hmong refugees (formerly encamped at the Wat Tham Krabok temple in Thailand) began to relocate to the United States. Several thousand Hmong are now settled in California. The Hmong Health Project (“HHP”) supports community-based organizations in the Central Valley in their efforts to bridge the language and cultural gaps between the Hmong and local health care providers. TCE offers capacity building and programmatic support to the twelve participating organizations, many of which are direct service organizations with limited advocacy experience.

The HHP evaluation assesses the advocacy efforts of the collaborative. Conducted by Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) on behalf of TCE, the evaluation focuses on measuring changes in advocacy capacity of individual organizations as they engage in joint advocacy efforts. SPR’s recent baseline assessment found a range of complementary skills, experience, and expertise across the 12 participating organizations. Evaluators suggested that this implies great potential for learning between organizations as the project progresses. SPR also discussed how each organization’s strengths can contribute to the overall capacity of the collaborative.

For their baseline measurements, SPR adapted the Alliance for Justice's Capacity Assessment Tool from "Build Your Advocacy Grantmaking: Advocacy Evaluation Tool/Advocacy Capacity Assessment Tool." The HHP evaluation altered the Capacity Assessment Tool’s indicators to account for varying levels of organizational readiness to take on systems change work, experience with advocacy work, and cultural and community contexts.

SPR’s two-year evaluation of the Hmong Health Project informs TCE’s ongoing policy advocacy work and strategy.

For more information about the results and implications of the baseline assessment from this evaluation, contact The California Endowment for a copy of "Baseline Assessment of a Hmong Health Project Advocacy Capacity" by Traci Endo Inouye, 2007.

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