Report Title:	Intermediary Profile Report
Report Date:

Organization:	OMG Center for Collaborative Learning	Program ID Number: I-13
Date Profile Created:	December 1, 2005	Date Profile Last Updated: June 30, 2009

Program Summary:
The OMG Center for Collaborative Learning (OMG) is an independent nonprofit research and consulting organization that works with groups in the philanthropic, nonprofit and governmental sectors. Its focus is on public and urban policy concerns, with a particular emphasis on organizational capacity building, program assessment and evaluation, data and trend analysis, and grants management and intermediary support. Its staff uses a collaborative action research approach that builds new learning and problem-solving capacities with clients and also contributes new learning to the fields in which they work. Areas of expertise include community and regional development, arts education, urban open space, arts and culture, health and human services, and children, youth and families. OMG provides a range of consulting services to national philanthropic institutions and nonprofit organizations that address quality of life issues in mostly urban communities. Among its strongest funding partners are the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Knight Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Lumina Foundation.

Services include:
(1) Evaluation - OMG views independent assessments as effective management tools, helping nonprofits make difficult program decisions and helping grantmakers shape overall grantmaking strategies and plans for targeting resources. It designs evaluations that engage the client and other stakeholders in the process, using quantitative and qualitative methods.

(2) Organization and Capacity Building - Strengthening the planning, leadership and managerial capabilities of individuals is essential for building organizational capacity and effectiveness. In its strategic planning projects, OMG works interactively, primarily as a facilitator rather than a technical expert. It emphasizes hands-on work sessions and team problem-solving techniques that engage participants around their individual organizational and program concerns. It strengthens management capacity by helping clients learn how to plan more effectively for themselves and build continuous planning and evaluation into their ongoing activities.

3) Strategic Research and Planning - Strategic research is critical to strategy and program development, and having dependable and relevant data is essential to developing an effective initiative targeted to make use of existing field assets as well as to fill actual gaps. OMG offers a variety of applied research projects to help clients with data-based decision-making, particularly in the areas of organizational and program planning. Recent research offerings include: statistical analysis of demographic and socio-economic data; geographic information analysis; survey design, administration, and analysis; graphic presentation; interview and focus group facilitation and analysis.

As strategic organizational and initiative planners, OMG helps clients use data to determine clear, realistic goals and to establish action steps. Strategic planning is done interactively with executives, staff and boards. OMG staff work as environmental scanners collecting and analyzing data, and also as facilitators, leading a process that helps clients identify opportunities, reframe missions, set goals and priorities, and reshape decision-making structures. Diverse methods are used to gather and interpret needed information.

(4) Grants Management and Intermediary Support - OMG helps grantmakers design RFPs, review proposals and determine awards for capacity-building grant programs; it then manages awarded grants and monitors program progress. As an intermediary it supports grantees in meeting their objectives through a range of targeted training and consultation services.

Among current OMG projects are: (1) The Pew Charitable Trusts' Pew Fund Capacity Building Program, recently launched in the Philadelphia region to support agencies receiving service delivery support from Pew. This effort provides grants, workshops and other guidance to help agencies identify their organizational capacity-building needs and implement projects that address them. (2) Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Evaluation Training and Evaluation Fellowship programs, profiled separately in this database under the foundation's name.

Project reports and publications, issue papers, and other learning resources are available at no charge on the OMG web site.