How do you build the capacity of grassroots, community-driven nonprofits to measure collective impact? We will share lessons learned in a 7-year collective impact initiative that built the evaluation and assessment capacity for all its arts education nonprofit partners through the creation of shared survey tools and assessment protocols, and extensive training and mentorship. The partners received training on how to develop logic models and effective survey tools, lead focus groups, analyze data and use it to tell a compelling story and advocate for arts education. Learn how to create research initiatives that do not extract from the community it is trying to serve, without money being the impetus of the evaluative work, but instead focuses on the building of the collective.