• $3,500,000Active Strategy

  2013 (Duration 4 years)

  Community & Economic Development

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK — MDRC is a non-profit, nonpartisan policy research and evaluation organization dedicated to learning what works to enhance the effectiveness of social and educational policies and programs. Since 2004, MDRC has led the evaluation of the New Communities Program, the Foundation-supported effort to help revitalize 16 low-income Chicago neighborhoods led by the Chicago office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). This grant funds MDRC's evaluation of the effectiveness of the Program's second phase, which seeks to demonstrate the power of a comprehensive community development approach to produce measurable improvements in key quality-of-life issues: housing, education, and violence prevention.

• $50,000Active Strategy

  2012 (Duration 1 year)

  Housing

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK — MDRC is a non-profit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization dedicated to learning what works to improve programs and policies that affect low-income families. MDRC will develop a compelling new intervention model that builds on prior evidence and experience to improve work-related outcomes and economic security among housing voucher households. In this year-long planning exercise, the research team will confer with other housing and workforce experts, including researchers, practitioners, housing authority staff, HUD officials, and staff from other government agencies at the federal, state and local levels to develop a design for and evaluation of the intervention.

• $920,000Active Strategy

  2012 (Duration 4 years)

  Community & Economic Development

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Founded in 1974, MDRC is a policy research and evaluation firm best known for pioneering the application of randomized controlled trials to improve social policies and programs affecting low-income populations. This grant supports a social network analysis as part of the MDRC-led evaluation of the New Communities Program, the Foundation's principal community development strategy: research that will contribute to the Foundation's and the field's understanding of whether and how the New Communities Program's investments in building stronger organizations and strengthening working relationships translate into more effective revitalization activities in the targeted Chicago neighborhoods.

The MacArthur Foundation awarded MDRC $4,470,000 between 2010 and 2013.