Case Study

Building a Robust Evidence Base: AppleTree

Early Childhood|Strategic Evidence Planning

AppleTree’s mission is to close the achievement gap for disadvantaged children before they enter kindergarten by providing 3 and 4-year olds with the social, emotional, and cognitive foundations that enable them to thrive in school. AppleTree seeks to help every child graduate Pre-K ready for Kindergarten, and graduate Kindergarten ready for school. 

AppleTree sought to answer questions critical to quality, implementation, and impact through its evidence strategy in the two major areas of the organization, and engaged Project Evident to support these efforts. They viewed their Strategic Evidence Plan (SEP) as a critical opportunity for AppleTree to build a robust evidence base around its pioneering work in the nation’s capital, while establishing a strong foundation for growth with quality and greater impact and influence on the early learning field.

Project Evident Partnered with AppleTree to complete a Strategic Evidence Plan that called for a range of recommendations based on AppleTree’s goals, from building systems, tools, and staff capacity to leverage data for evidence to piloting ECR to test effectiveness and sustainability in different settings.

Since the delivery of the SEP, members of the Project Evident team supported funder plan communication and plan implementation.  AppleTree successfully raised funds against the needs in their SEP, secured a data agreement with the DC public schools, launched a longitudinal evaluation of its work in DC, and funded an evaluation of the organization’s expansion with a Federal replication grant.