MDRC, the nation’s preeminent social policy research organization dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect the poor, is evaluating the CCF initiative. This brief is the third in a series by MDRC. This brief describes how CCF grantees’ service coordination efforts have helped to place individuals without extensive work histories in higher-wage jobs, to encourage first-generation college students to enter school and stay enrolled, and to get academically struggling students back on track, among other outcomes. Besides drawing on interviews with the grantees — St. Nicks Alliance, the Fifth Avenue Committee, New Settlement Apartments, and Cypress Hill Local Development Corporation — and quantitative data on outcomes from the grantees’ reports to the funders, this brief uses an analytic tool called social network analysis whose basic unit is the relation, rather than an individual or organization.

 

Read the report here.