Guide Outline

Click anywhere in the outline below to jump to a step. You may also scroll down to view all steps in order.

How can we help you?

Select your experience level below.

Phase 1

Get Started

Go

A

Assess the landscape of current initiatives in the state

Go

B

Build a network of multi-sector partners and stakeholders

Go

C

Establish your structure

Go

Helpful Resources

Phase 2

Strategy and Planning

Go

A

hold a kickoff meeting or summit

Go

B

Identify funding and resources

Go

C

Establish lung cancer priorities

Go

D

Set goals

Go

E

Create an action plan

Go

Helpful Resources

Phase 3

Implement and Grow

Go

A

Maintain momentum

Go

B

Track and evaluate progress

Go

C

Expand or evolve

Go

Helpful Resources

State coalition-building is brand new to me.

Start from the beginning and take your time going through each step.

Back

I have experience with coalition-building, but am new to lung cancer.

I have experience with coalition-building, but am new to lung cancer.

You’ll find suggestions for building a lung cancer-oriented partner network by visiting “Build a network of multi-sector partners and stakeholders”. We’ll guide you from there.

Back

I need a formal process for my initiative.

Walk through the worksheets for each activity to make sure all your pieces are in place and to see what you might be missing.

Back

All the pieces are in place but I’m running into roadblocks.

Head to Practical Tips under the challenging activity and the Troubleshooting Guide at the end of each Phase.

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Guide Outline

Home
Outline

Phase 1
Get Started

Phase 2
Strategy and Planning

Phase 3
Implement and Grow

Phase 3: Implement & Grow

A

Maintain momentum to:

  • Keep current partners engaged and engage new partners.
  • See the impact of your work!
  • Build on or scale up successful activities.

Go

B

Track and evaluate progress to:

  • Maintain partner accountability
  • Monitor for current and future funding needs
  • Identify problems early enough to fix them
  • Show your successes

Go

C

Expand or evolve to:

  • Keep strategies and priorities consistent with changing scientific understanding.
  • Restructure when new partner or convener opportunities arise.
  • Optimize your energy or resources

Go

Explore Helpful Resources to supplement your work.

  • Worksheets
  • Practical Tips
  • Troubleshooting

Go

Phase 3 - Step A

Maintaining Momentum

Once your initiate is underway, it will take continued care and feeding to stay on track and keep partners engaged.

Strategies to stay on track

  • Schedule regular check-ins organized by priority area workgroups. Regular check-ins ensure that barriers are addressed quickly by reallocating resources or adjusting the timeline if needed.
  • Create a short summary of your action plan to share with partners, volunteers, and others you want to engage.Remind partners of the overarching goal frequently.
  • Make the status of activities available to all collaborators to ensure accountability.
  • Celebrate successes along the way, even small successes.

Phase 3 - Step B

Track and Evaluate Progress

Tracking your progress towards your goals helps to maintain accountability, monitor for current and future funding needs, and identify problems early enough to fix them. Add content stressing the importance of good data to establish your baseline. Evaluating your progress will also provide evidence of your successes and help secure more engagement, funding, and other support. Pay attention to both outcome evaluation – which applies to your priority goals – and process evaluation – which shows how well the initiative is working. Both are important to track and evaluate.

Outcome Evaluation

Goal Where We Were Where We Are Now*
Example: Increase lung cancer screening in eligible population. Lung cancer screening in eligible population was 10%. 2 years into project: Lung cancer screening in eligible population is 12% 5 years into project: Lung cancer screening in eligible population is 20%.
Example: Increase the percentage of people who currently smoke who contact the state Quitline. People who smoke who contacted the state Quitline annually was 45%. People who smoke who contacted the state Quitline is 60%
Example: Increase the percentage of patients diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer who receive biomarker testing at five community hospitals. (Baseline could be the average across all five sites or by individual site.) Biomarker testing rates for this target population was 20% across the five sites. Biomarker testing rates for this target population increased by at least 10% at each of the five sites.
Example: Decrease the percentage of patients with advanced lung cancer who stop treatment due to cost. 50% of patients with advanced lung cancer who expressed financial distress were successfully connected to appropriate financial assistance. 80% of patients with advanced lung cancer who expressed financial distress were successfully connected to appropriate financial assistance.

* Track at a variety of timepoints to make sure you are staying on course. Funders may want to see an annual report, but quarterly reviews can help you see early success or where there are problems that need to be addressed.

Process Evaluation

What to Evaluate How to Evaluate It
Evaluate how the coalition is functioning
  • Survey task group members and leaders to see how they feel about working together as a coalition.
  • Track attendance at meetings and engagement in activities
Evaluate resource sustainability
  • Assess how your funding and budget are supporting your priorities and activities
Evaluate representation
  • Review active partners to see how well your coalition represents a variety of stakeholder areas.
  • Review active members to see how well your coalition represents the needs of underrepresented or marginalized populations

Phase 3 - Step C

Expand or Evolve

When to Consider Expanding When to Consider Evolving
Structure The state Comprehensive Cancer Control program has the capacity to become a convener. A grant-funded project ends, and another organization wants to continue the work.
Priorities Scientific advances can cause original priorities to be out of date or point to an improved approach. Updated state-level data can show advances towards your existing goals that may make other priorities more urgent.
Scale of Activities

• New funding exists

• Staff or volunteers have capacity

• There are wins to show

• New partnerships have developed

Phase 3

Helpful Resources


Worksheets

Phase III Maintain Momentum

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Phase III Implement The Action Plan

View More

Phase III Track/Evaluate Progress and Impact

View More

Practical Tips

Step A

Maintain Momentum

“We put the overarching objective at the top of the agenda for every meeting for our coalition. Repeating the overarching goal frequently is a way to remind everyone that this is why we are here.”

“Write up an action plan summary one-pager to provide in place of a bigger action plan. People will be more likely to remember them.

“Celebrate the easy goals. When people see even the small accomplishments, it motivates them.”

Step B

Track and Evaluate Progress

Find evaluation teams outside of the initiative staff. Provides objectivity, they can push and also stand back and evaluate rigorously.

Lean on specific members who have expertise in a certain area. For example, someone with this expertise can help create an evaluation framework.

Find out what measures the members of your coalition are tracking separately and pull them in to track collectively.

Identify university partners who can help.

Step C

Expand or Evolve

“Don’t just follow the money. If you take funding tied to a specific activity or priority that doesn’t fit the goals of stakeholders or isn’t in line with what would be impactful, you can spend a lot of time and effort for something that can derail your whole effort.”

“A good way to assess if it’s time to expand your efforts is by listening to your members. Are they showing engagement? If they are, it may be a good sign that you can grow. If they aren’t engaged, now might not be the right time to take on more.”

Troubleshooting

Keeping partners/stakeholders engaged

Revisit partner priorities and make sure you are helping them achieve these priorities

Make sure meetings are efficient and action-oriented

Conduct ongoing communication

Team not following the action plan

Remind partners and activity leaders of the overall goal and make sure you have made an effective case for the action plan to be the best way to meet the goal.

If you don’t have dedicated staff or volunteers focused on program management, make that happen.

A specific barrier (funding, policy, etc.) won’t let us move forward

Ask “what can we do”?” Plan so that when the barrier is gone, you can move forward. Don’t change your goal but look for other wins so the barrier doesn’t stall your efforts.

Staff changes have led to setbacks

If someone is coming into leadership, get them up to speed quickly and effectively by connecting them purposefully with the group.
Make sure the people with institutional memory help with comprehensive onboarding.

Action plan is too ambitious

Assess where you are in the action plan and prioritize activities that already have momentum.

Helpful Links

Evaluation Documents, Workbooks and Tools

https://www.cdc.gov/eval/tools/developmenttools/index.html

Developing an Effective Evaluation Plan, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/downloads/cdc-evaluation-workbook-508.pdf

Partnership Self-Asssessment