Browse Planning Resources
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"Participatory Performance Story Reporting" Clear Horizon, an M&E company in Australia, describes its participatory approach, specifically as it relates to the method of performance story reporting (PPSR). The company defines performance story reports as "essentially a short report about how a program contributed to outcomes." This page on their website includes links to other pages that describe the structure, process, and limitations of this the PPSR method. Author: Clear Horizon Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Dec 31, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (161.39 KB) -
#JAGUnity2014: Innovations in Evaluating Social Movements Today, social movement organizers are grappling with big questions: What is the long-term impact we are hoping to make? How can we measure the progress we've made thus far? How can we learn from past practice? On June 7, 2014, Innovation Netowrk's William Fenn spoke on a panel with with Deepak Pateriya and Sian O'Faolain of the Center for Community Change and Hillary Klein of Make the Road New York to try and answer some of these questions. Author: Will Fenn, Deepak Pateriya, Sian O'Faolain, Hillary Klein Type: Presentation Slides Date: Jun 7, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
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 -
8 Steps to Develop an Evaluation Plan Innovation Network identified eight key steps in our 2005 evaluation of a U.S. federal policy change campaign. These steps may also be useful in other advocacy evaluations. Author: Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Oct 1, 2005
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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 Menu of Assessment Activities This brief menu of questions provides a simple, straightforward overview of evaluation activities. Author: Brett A. Magill Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Feb 24, 2010
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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) -
Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Executive Training: Evaluating Social Programs 2009 This five-day program on evaluating social programs provides a thorough understanding of randomized evaluations and pragmatic step-by-step training for conducting one's own evaluation. While the course focuses on randomized evaluations, many of the topics, such as measuring outcomes and dealing with threats to the validity of an evaluation, are relevant for other methodologies.
Courses have been recorded and loaded as videos online, split up by topic. You may also access the course lecture notes and assignments.Author: Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, & Abhijit Banerjee Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: May 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Addressing Attribution of Cause and Effect in Small n Impact Evaluations: Towards an Integrated Framework With the results agenda in the ascendancy in the development community, there is an increasing need to demonstrate that development spending makes a difference, that it has an impact. This requirement to demonstrate results has fuelled an increase in the demand for, and production of, impact evaluations. There exists considerable consensus among impact evaluators conducting large n impact evaluations involving tests of statistical difference in outcomes between the treatment group and a properly constructed comparison group.
Author: Howard White and Daniel Phillips Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2012
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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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Advocacy & Public Policy Grantmaking: Matching Process to Purpose The Colorado Trust, in an effort to better understand the field of funding advocacy and public policy work, commissioned this publication to describe strategies funders use; advantages and tradeoffs to funding advocacy; implications for funders, advocates, and evaluation; and implications for the outcomes the Colorado Trust is working towards. It identifies three buckets of funding strategies that have emerged: the policy target approach, the advocacy niche approach, and the field building approach.
Author: Tanya Beer, Pilar Stella Ingargiola, Meghann Flynn Beer Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (379.48 KB) -
Advocacy Capacity Tool The Advocacy Capacity Tool (ACT) is for organizational assessment. ACT, released in May 2012, is a self-assessment tool that allows organizations of any size and issue area to gauge their advocacy skills, knowledge and abilities.
The Tool includes four sections of assessment, and gives users an individual scoring report as well as the ability to compare results with other organizations of similar size, issue area, and location.
Author: Bolder Advocacy (an initiative of Alliance for Justice) Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: May 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (719.51 KB) -
Advocacy Evaluation Update #9 In This Issue:
1. Feature: Framework of Factors that Affect Political Support
Why do some issues receive priority attention from political leaders while others receive very little? Political scientist Jeremy Shiffman has developed a framework that offers a response to this question.
2. Spotlight: Evaluating Community Organizing
Catherine Crystal Foster and Justin Louie identify what to consider when evaluating community organizing efforts. They also offer example benchmarks and methods for capturing organizing outcomes.
Author: Julia Coffman (ed.) Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: May 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (329.6 KB) -
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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AEA Paper: "Accountability and the No Child Left Behind Act: Implications for Public Policy" Cindy Roper of Clemson University delivered this paper (and a presentation of the same title) at the 2008 American Evaluation Association conference. Roper examined accountability measures for a policy initiative (in this case, the No Child Left Behind act) through the lens of organizational theory. Author: Roper, Cindy Type: Research & Reports Date: Nov 8, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (54.08 KB) -
AEA Presentation: "Accountability and the No Child Left Behind Act: Implications for Public Policy" Cindy Roper of Clemson University delivered the following slides (and a paper of the same title) at the 2008 American Evaluation Association conference. Roper examined accountability measures for a policy initiative (in this case, the No Child Left Behind act) through the lens of organizational theory. Author: Roper, Cindy Type: Presentation Slides Date: Nov 8, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (44.7 KB) -
AEA Presentation: "Striving for Alignment: One Funder's Lessons in Supporting Advocacy" The following slides were presented at the American Evaluation Association 2008 conference by Ehren Reed of Innovation Network and Tanya Beer of The Colorado Trust. The authors discussed lessons from an advocacy evaluation capacity building project. Author: Innovation Network; The Colorado Trust Type: Presentation Slides Date: Nov 1, 2008 Be the first to review this resource! Download (575 KB) -
Agency and Empowerment: A Proposal for Internationally Comparable Indicators This article proposes a short list of internationally-comparable indicators of inclividual agency and empowerment (and the corresponcling survey questions). Data from these indicators would enable researchers to explore research and policy issues such as the interconnections between empowerment and economic or human development. The article sUNeys definitions of agency and empowerment, adopts the definition from Amartya Sen, supplemented by Rowlands' typology. Author: Solava Ibrahim and Sabina Alkire Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 30, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.21 MB) -
An Ecological Understanding of Evaluation Use: A Case Study of the Active for Life Evaluation This document presents a case study of use of an evaluation of Active for Life: Increasing Physical Activity Levels in Adults Age 50 and Older a program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The breadth of both the program and the evaluation created additional ways of thinking about evaluation use–what it looks like, where you find it and how to connect it.
Author: Judith Ottoson and Diane Martinez, Type: Research & Reports Date: Jun 1, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (847.79 KB)