Browse planning guide Resources
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A Guide to Actionable Measurement Staff members from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation discuss the principles and practices they use to make decisions about data collection, analysis, and reporting. Their approach, "actionable measurement," emphasizes the collection of information for specific decisions or actions.
UPDATE: We had a broken link here. It was updated on Jan. 13, 2011.
Author: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Type: Research & Reports Date: May 10, 2010
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A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy Developed for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this guide serves as a broad call to grantmakers to build and advance the field of advocacy and policy evaluation. The guide includes sections on the context of advocacy evaluation and evaluation design. Author: Reisman, Jane, et al. Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 15, 2007
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A Practical Guide for Engaging Stakeholders in Developing Evaluation Questions This guide describes a five-step process for engaging stakeholders in developing evaluation
questions, and includes four worksheets and a case example to further facilitate the planning
and implementation of your stakeholder engagement process.Step 1: Prepare for stakeholder engagement: This step includes collecting information about
the program or initiative being evaluated—its history, why it came into being, what it is trying
to accomplish and what success would look like.Author: Hallie Preskill and Nathalie Jones Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jun 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1001.41 KB) -
A Practical Guide to Evaluating Systems Change in a Human Services System Context This Guide is for evaluators who would like a practical “way in” to thinking about systems and systemschange. The key practical step the Guide takes is to limit the type of system to be evaluated to aparticular type of system (a type that systems change initiatives often target): a human servicesdelivery system (e.g. health, education, workforce development, etc.).Author: Nancy Latham Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2015 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.03 MB) -
A User's Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning Julia Coffman of Harvard Family Research Project produced this free guide to advocacy evaluation planning for advocates, evaluators, and funders. The guide introduces users to the composite logic model and includes a pullout worksheet along with several lists of sample advocacy evaluation outcomes and methods. Author: Julia Coffman Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Sep 1, 2009 Point K Pick
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Advocacy Guide: InterAction's Eight Steps to Strategic Advocacy This short guide gives an overview of eight steps of a strategic advocacy campaign. These eight steps align with the eight sections in InterAction's Advocacy Toolkit (q.v.).
The steps are:- Pick Your Issue
- Setting Goals
- Lay of the Land
- Identify Your Targets
- Communications
- Tactics and Timeline
- Resource Management, and
- Evaluation.
Author: InterAction Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2006
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Advocacy in Action: A toolkit to support NGOs and CBOs responding to HIV/AIDS This toolkit is a guide to facilitating a workshop for planning an advocacy effort. Section 2.8 of the toolkit (pp. 56-60) presents step-by-step instructions to selecting and monitoring indicators, and performing an evaluation. Author: International HIV/AIDS Alliance Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2002 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.01 MB) -
Advocacy Strategies for Civil Society: A Conceptual Framework and Practitioner’s Guide Fox and Helweg developed this publication to help USAID evaluate advocacy components of international development projects. The publication discusses advocacy strategies as part of a developmental project, how to choose the correct advocacy strategy for a project, and the process of identifying and developing advocacy capacity building needs. Author: Fox, Leslie M., and Helweg, Priya Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 1997
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Advocacy Toolkit: Creating Campaigns that Change the World This toolkit was designed as a reference guide for staff of relief and development organizations who are seeking domestic (U.S.) support for international issues. The guide grew out of the work of InterAction's Outreach and Communications Working Group, "a forum for communications, fundraising, volunteering, advocacy, and grassroots organization, where professionals come together to share experiences, lessons learned, and collaborate whenever possible."
The advocacy toolkit contains eight sections:Author: InterAction Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 1, 2006
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An Essential Guide to SWOT Analysis The Essential Guide to SWOT Analysis is the end product of a unique collaboration. As previously noted, through my work at a startup, I realized that there were no great, comprehensive SWOT guides out there, especially for people in the business world. So, I enlisted my college mentor, Justin Gomer, a Lecturer at UC Berkeley, and we decided to make a comprehensive guide ourselves. Author: Justin Gomer & Jackson Hille Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Basic Guide to Outcomes-Based Evaluation for Nonprofit Organizations with Very Limited Resources Aimed specifically at small nonprofits with limited resources, this is a complete, practical guide for a small scale, do-it-yourself outcomes evaluation. Author: McNamara, Carter (ed.) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008 Point K Pick
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Basic Guide to Program Evaluation Carter McNamara's guide to evaluation, part of his Free Management Library and drawn from his book Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation. This guide covers the hows and whys of evaluation, an overview of evaluation and data collection methodologies and how to choose between them, analysis and interpretation advice, and other tips. Author: McNamara, Carter (ed.) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008
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Basics of Conducting Focus Groups This is a succinct guide to running a focus group. It includes tips for preparation, developing questions, session planning, facilitation, and followup activities. Author: McNamara, Carter (ed.) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Catholic Relief Services (CRS): Guide pour l’élaboration des cadres logiques et de résultats Vue d’ensemble
Le présent document propose une synthèse des orientations du Catholic Relief Services (CRS) pour l’élaboration des cadres logiques et de résultats.Author: Carlisle J. Levine Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 31, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (210.09 KB) -
Catholic Relief Services' (CRS) Guidance for Developing Logical and Results Frameworks This document summarizes Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) guidance for developing logical and results frameworks.
• logical framework “is a systematic and visual way to present and share your understanding of the relationships among the resources you have to operate your program, the activities you plan, and the changes or results you hope to achieve.”CRS’ proframe and the U.K. Department for International Development’s (DFID’s) logframe are examples of logical frameworks.
Author: Carlisle J. Levine Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jan 31, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (196.44 KB) -
Community-Based Project Evaluation Guide This 76-page .pdf evaluation guide was originally created in 1997. It was updated in 2000. The guide is intended to help practitioners evaluate community-based programs with a focus on children, youth, and families. The guide explores the links between theory and research, goals and objectives, measures, variables, and program implementation. It includes examples of outcomes for children and youth issue areas, samples, and worksheets. Author: Callor, Suzanne et al. Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Dec 14, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (235.68 KB) -
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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Designing a Results Framework for Achieving Results: A How-To Guide A results framework serves as a key tool in the development landscape, enabling practitioners to discuss and establish strategic development objectives and then link interventions to intermediate outcomes and results that directly relate to those objectives. This publication provides how-to guidance for developing results frameworks by discussing the following: Author: Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Sep 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (834.16 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 A Beginners Guide This document aims to present a user-friendly approach to the process of evaluation. It is
particularly targeted at those involved in programs working towards the introduction of human
rights concepts and values in educational curricula and teaching practices, who are initiating an
evaluation for the first time. It contains practical suggestions on how to effectively organize the
evaluation of such programs in order to learn from the work implemented so far.Author: Amnesty International Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Jun 30, 1999
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Evaluation Plan Workbook (.pdf) Innovation Network's own workbook on evaluation planning. Can be used alone or in conjunction with the Evaluation Plan Builder at the Point K Learning Center. Author: Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: May 14, 2005 Point K Pick
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Evaluation Plan Workbook (in MS Word) Innovation Network's own workbook: an introduction to the processes and concepts of evaluation planning. Author: Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Templates & Samples Date: Dec 31, 2005 Point K Pick
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Evaluation Principles and Practices: An Internal Working Paper The purpose of this document is to advance the Foundation’s existing work so that our evaluation practices become more consistent across the organization. We hope to create more common understanding of our philosophy, purpose, and expectations regarding evaluation as well as clarify staff roles and available support. With more consistency and shared understanding, we expect less wheel re-creation across program areas, greater learning from each other’s efforts, and faster progress in designing meaningful evaluations and applying the results.
Author: Fay Twersky & Karen Lindblom Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 22, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.42 MB) -
Evaluation Resource Guide This listing and description of resources has been developed to help Department staff evaluate and monitor the performance of Department programs. It also is intended to be useful for county staff and other service providers. Resources in the Guide range from evaluation manuals providing basic information to books with detailed information on specific topics such as logic models, data analysis or sampling. Also included are resources on identifying effective programs/best practices, evaluation standards, and contracting for evaluation.
Author: Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: May 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (223.14 KB) -
Funder Collaboratives: Why and How Funders Work Together When it comes to funder collaboratives, is the whole truly greater than the sum of its parts? Can foundations make a bigger impact with grant dollars by working together than by going it alone? Yes, grantmakers say, as long as members define their goals, set clear operational guidelines, and work from the start to make the collaborative function well for grantees. In this guide, contributors share strategies for structuring a collaborative to fit its purpose, building strong relationships and resolving conflicts, and figuring out if the collaborative you're in is working. Author: Grantcraft Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (306.83 KB)