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5 Evaluation Lessons From a Recovering Program Officer (Presentation slides) As a profession, evaluators must constantly demonstrate the value of their work to remain relevant. Each evaluation represents a significant investment in resources that many argue could be used to provide more programming. Author: Will Fenn Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 17, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (4.05 MB) -
5 Evaluation Lessons from a Recovering Program Officer (recording) As a profession, evaluators must constantly demonstrate the value of their work to remain relevant. Each evaluation represents a significant investment in resources that many argue could be used to provide more programming. A primary concern of maintaining the value proposition of the evaluation field is ensuring that evaluations remain manageable and useful to all participants. The Ignite session offered five succinct lessons from a former foundation Program Officer that can be applied across program types to help nonprofits and foundations improve evaluation coordination and use. Author: Will Fenn Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Oct 17, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
A Practical Guide to Documenting Influence and Leverage In Making Connections Communities This guide offers practical steps for capturing and documenting the effects of influence and leverage in Casey's making Connections communities. Through examples of influence and leverage outcomes -- as well as tools and methods for data collection -- this guide pointed the way for Making Connections teams, partners and funders to better communicate and refine strategies to help improve the lives of vulnerable children.
Author: Commissioned by Annie E. Casey Foundation. Researched by Organizational Research Services. Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 8, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Advocacy & Policy Change Composite Logic Model and associated materials This collaborative work by more than 50 advocates, grantmakers, and evaluators offers a way to improve communication in the advocacy evaluation field by articulating common goals, outcomes, and indicators. Supplements to the Model include guiding questions, definitions, and samples based on hypothetical advocacy situations—one each for the intended "strategy" and "evaluation" uses of the Model. There is also an online tool based on the Model.
Author: Coffman, Julia, et al. Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Apr 1, 2007
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Agency Experiences with Outcome Measurement: Survey Findings As of January 2000, 400 United Ways across the country were asking programs they fund
to identify and measure their outcomes—the benefits or changes the programs want
participants to experience as a result of their services. United Ways are not alone. Many
state and local government agencies, foundations, managed care systems, and accrediting bodies
have added outcome measurement to the list of performance and accountability measures
they require of nonprofit organizations within their sphere.Author: United Way of America Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (209.74 KB) -
Applying Culturally-Responsive Communication in Hispanic/Latino Communities Understanding cultural norms can help you to better reach, communicate with and educate your audience. When you meet someone new, you should always remember to be open and respectful of their beliefs. This resource provides some norms that are common among all Hispanic/Latino cultures, and examples of a few of those norms and ways to improve communication with the communities you serve. Author: Susan G. Komen Foundation Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Dec 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Download (370.56 KB) -
Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide Produced by Asibey Consulting for The Communications Network, this report was created for philanthropic organizations and nonprofits seeking to evaluate and improve their communications. The authors conducted surveys and interviews to examine current practices in communications evaluation. This document includes several worksheets to help readers take action on the report's recommendations. Author: Asibey Consulting and The Communications Network Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2008
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Candidate Outcome Indicators: Advocacy Program This publication, based on joint research by the Urban Institute and The Center for What Works, provides a framework for tracking nonprofit performance. It suggests candidate outcomes and outcome indicators to assist nonprofit organizations that seek to develop new outcome monitoring processes or improve their existing systems. Author: Urban Institute and The Center for What Works Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Jan 1, 2007
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Creative Ways to Solicit Youth Input: A Hands-On Guide for Youth Practitioners To understand how our programs are doing, improve the quality of those programs and report to funders and other stakeholders, we collect information from a variety of sources: staff, parents, and the youth themselves. This manual provides ideas for other, creative ways to get input from youth.
Part One outlines a process you can use to plan your evaluation questions. Next, we present some key ideas to consider when implementing your evaluation, analyzing the results and reporting them.
Author: Public Profit Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: May 1, 2012
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Data and Information Visualization Throughout the Evaluation Life Cycle for Participatory Evaluation and Evaluation Capacity Innovation Network shared approaches and examples of how to incorporate innovative data and information visualization techniques throughout each stage of the evaluation life cycle to support participatory evaluation and build evaluation capacity. In the planning and design phase mind mapping can be used to promote brainstorming and idea generation. In the data collection stage, evaluators can use creative visuals to improve stakeholder understanding of and participation in data collection, and evaluators can adhere to good design principles to create effective data collection instruments. Author: Johanna Morariu, Myia Welsh, Veena Pankaj, Melissa March Type: Presentation Slides Date: Nov 3, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Data and Information Visualization Throughout the Life Cycle for Participatory Evaluation and Evaluation Capacity Building This is a handout containing a list of great resources to help improve your data visualization skills. The list provides links to websites that will help you design the right color scheme (such as Design Seeds), websites that provides basic information about principles of design, and great examples of how evaluators, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data viz to help us understand data better.
Author: Johanna Morariu and Veena Pankaj Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 1, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (392.28 KB) -
Data Placemats: A DataViz Technique to Improve Stakeholder Understanding of Evaluation Results [Slides] Author: Veena Pankaj Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 31, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Data Placemats: A DataViz Technique to Improve Stakeholder Understanding of Evaluation Results [Slides] At the American Evaluation Assocaition 2012 Annual Conference, Veena Pankaj describes various ways to improve stakeholder engagement, as well as ways to increase stakeholder understanding of evaluation results. Author: Veena Pankaj Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 25, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Dataviz! Or, How to Win at Communication and Influence People (Resources Handout) Are you intrigued by data and information visualization—dataviz—and how it could improve your communication strategy? Are you interested in the range of dataviz options, but unsure which is right for you? Or are you maybe even drowning in data and looking for someone to throw you a life-saving suggestion for tools to transform your data into a message?
Author: Johanna Morariu Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: May 17, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (510.3 KB) -
Evaluability Assessment to Improve Public Health Policies, Programs, and Practices This article describes how evaluability assessment has benefited public health and could do so in future. We describe the rationale, history, and evolution of evaluability assessment. We outline the steps in the method and distinguish it from related concepts. We then illustrate how evaluability assessment can benefit public health in five ways:
Author: Laura C. Leviton, Laura Kettel Khan, Debra Rog, Nicola Dawkins, and David Cotton Type: Research & Reports Date: Jul 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (380.53 KB) -
Evaluating Foundation-Supported Capacity Building: Lessons Learned This study of lessons learned from evaluations of philanthropic capacitybuilding programs used a national database of 473 programs, and a survey and interviews with 87 funders (82 foundations or foundation collaboratives, and five foundation-supported intermediaries) to answer two questions:
(1) How do foundations that support nonprofit capacity building evaluate their grantmaking and direct service activities?
(2) What lessons can be learned from valuation, both to improve these programs and justify the investments made in them?
Author: Thomas E. Backer, Jane Ellen Bleeg & Kathryn Groves Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (152.27 KB) -
Evaluating System Change: A Planning Guide This methods brief provides guidance on planning effective evaluations of system change interventions. It begins with a general overview of systems theory and then outlines a three-part process for designing system change evaluations. This three-part process aligns (1) the dynamics of the targeted system or situation, (2) the dynamics of the system change intervention, and (3) the intended purpose(s) and methods of the evaluation.
Author: Margaret B. Hargreaves Type: Research & Reports Date: Apr 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.63 MB) -
Evaluation Blogging: Improve Your Practice, Share Your Expertise, and Strengthen Your Network (Presentation slides) Want to start blogging about evaluation, but not sure where to start? Started, but want to know what to expect (or what to do next, or how to keep it going)? Ready to take your independent consulting practice to the next level? Author: Ann K. Emery, Susan Kistler, Chris Lysy, Sheila B. Robinson Type: Presentation Slides Date: Oct 19, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.84 MB) -
Evaluation Capacity Building: Examples and Lessons from the Field Innovation Network developed these three introductory evaluation documents as part of Building Nonprofit Capacity to Evaluate, Learn, and Grow Impact, a workshop we presented in partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations' Scaling What Works initiative. Author: Johanna Morariu, Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Research & Reports Date: Apr 1, 2012 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
EVALUATION CAPACITY BUILDING: Funder Initiatives to Strengthen Grantee Evaluation Capacity and Practice Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) is the process of improving an organization’s ability to use evaluation to learn from its work and improve results. Organizational learning is incredibly important. Organizations that are adept at learning from mistakes and adapting to new challenges are more likely to be successful, and in the nonprofit sector, more likely to make significant progress toward mission-related outcomes. In general, ECB can be used to:
Author: Myia Welsh and Johanna Morariu Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 15, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (248.37 KB) -
Failing to learn and learning to fail (intelligently): How great organizations put failure to work to improve and innovate The paper provides insight into what makes learning from failure so difficult to put into practice. The authors address the question of why organizations fail to learn from failure. They identify pernicious barriers embedded in both technical and social systems that make collective learning processes unusual in organizations, and present recommendations for what managers can do to overcome these barriers.
Author: Mark D. Cannon and Amy C. Edmondson Type: Research & Reports Date: Feb 5, 2004 Be the first to review this resource! Download (388.5 KB) -
How to Climb the R Learning Curve Without Falling Off the Cliff: Advice from Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced R Users R is hotter than ever in the evaluation field as evaluators are looking for ways to improve their data management, analysis, and visualizations. First-time R users are asking themselves, Is R right for my evaluation work? Where do I start if I want to learn R? How long will it take to learn R? Evaluators without programming experience are often frustrated by R's steep learning curve. These novice R users are left wondering, How can I climb the R learning curve without falling off the cliff?
Author: Tony Fujs, Will Fenn, Ann Emery Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Oct 19, 2013 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (229.52 KB) -
Immunization Advocacy Goals Civil society has now rallied around a new Immunization Advocacy Goals framework, presenting a menu of advocacy options to improve access to vaccines around the world.
The framework’s five goals unite civil society – from implementers in Afghanistan, to research and development advocates in Australia – under shared goals that provide an intellectual underpinning for local, regional, and global advocacy on immunizations.Author: GAVI Alliance Civil Society Constituency Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Dec 1, 2012
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Introduction to Program Evaluation This course is designed for people new to the field of program evaluation and is based on CDC’s Framework for Program Evaluation.
Program evaluation is an essential component of all TB control programs. Evaluation enables us to improve and enhance our programs and
better meet our goals for TB elimination. It provides evidence to make good decisions about a program or an initiative and also helps us be accountable to funders – including the CDC, other agencies and organizations.Author: Anne Powers, PhD Type: Presentation Slides Date: Nov 14, 2005 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
LearnPhilanthropy LearnPhilanthropy's Knowledge Library is a resource for people who are new to grantmaking or those seeking new ideas and tools to improve their grantmaking practice. Here you will find essential learning and new research on a range of common issues and key challenges in philanthropy. Working with leading organizations across the field, LearnPhilanthropy regularly updates this centralized library with reports, tools, and other resources. Author: LearnPhilanthropy Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Sep 23, 2014 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Web Link