Managing toward Evidence: State-Level Evidence-Based Policymaking and the Results First Initiative

• Author: Patrick Lester
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716218767839
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Subject Matter: Major Elements of the Evidence-Based Movement

ANNALS, AAPSS, 678, July 2018 93

DOI: 10.1177/0002716218767839

Managing

toward

Evidence:

State-Level

Evidence-Based

Policymaking

and the Results

First Initiative

By

PATRICK LESTER

767839ANN The Annals of the American AcademyManaging Toward Evidence

research-article2018

In 2010, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John D. and

Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation launched an ini-

tiative called Results First to help states and local gov-

ernments better incorporate evidence into their policy,

budget, and management-related decision-making.

This article reviews the early results and lessons of

Results First by summarizing the initiative and the cur-

rent level of evidence use in the states, describing

political and administrative obstacles that have compli-

cated similar efforts, and discussing how Results First

is addressing them. I conclude that rational, top-down

policymaking by elected officials is taking place in

states and that Results First appears to be having some

success in helping to make policy decisions better

informed. I also argue, though, that Results First may

be having an even greater effect by encouraging

evidence-based management among appointed officials

and non-policymaking civil servant managers, and that

this may help evidence-based policy avoid some of the

pitfalls that have undermined previous efforts at gov-

ernment reform.

Keywords: evidence; social policy; state policy; man-

agement

Because evidence-based policy is rooted in

rigorous research, which is viewed as a

federal core competency, much of the focus on

evidence-based policy in the United States has

been on federal efforts (Haskins and Margolis

2014). But that has begun to change.

If much of the early work was devoted to

building evidence, now more attention is being

paid to how that evidence is used. This shift in

attention has also produced a change in focus.

By necessity, much of the work of translating

research into concrete policies and program

Correspondence: patrick@socialinnovationcenter.org

Patrick Lester is the director of the Social Innovation

Research Center (SIRC). SIRC is a nonpartisan non-

profit research organization devoted to increasing the

impact of nonprofits and public agencies in the field of

human services.