Browse evaluation use Resources
-
2008 Civic Engagement Evaluation Assessment and Recommendations for the Field 2008 was a historic year for civic participation in the United States. The Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP) brings together grantmakers committed to enhancing democratic participation in all aspects of civic life. Its nearly 80 members comprised of private, public and community foundations collectively contributed scores of millions of dollars to non-partisan civic engagement efforts of all kinds nationwide.
Author: Lacy M. Serros Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (699.52 KB) -
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 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
Download (284.17 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) -
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 and evaluation: national organizations as advocates Canadian Evaluation Society's approach to advocating evaluation at the national level, focusing on transnational sharing of evaluation knowledge to promote the use of evaluation in society. Author: Joe Kpachevsky, Marie-Hélène Adrien, & Charles Lusthaus Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (33.25 KB) -
Advocacy Impact Assessment Guidelines This publication reviews what advocacy is, how NGOs can use it, and considerations for evaluating it. The publication outlines five "dimensions of change":
Author: Lloyd-Laney, Megan Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Mar 24, 2003 Be the first to review this resource! Download (208.15 KB) -
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) -
An Advocate’s Perspective: Ten Considerations for Effective Advocacy Evaluation Ted Lempert, president of the Oakland, California-based advocacy and research organization Children Now, provides his ten considerations for effective advocacy evaluation. Lempert presented this document at the Advocacy Evaluation Advances convening in Los Angeles in January, 2009.
Do you agree with these ten considerations? Should something be added to this list? Please use the comment section below to contribute to the discussion.
Author: Lempert, Ted Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: Jan 20, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (66.81 KB) -
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) -
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) -
Common Results Catalog The Common Outcomes Catalog is a resource developed by GuideStar to support organizations to select and use metrics. Hundreds of example metrics are provided, and are organized by three general categories (Advocacy-Policy, Intermediary Organizations, and Other) and eight issue-area categories (Animals, Arts and Culture, Economic Development, Education, Environment, Health and Wellness, Human Services, and Philanthropy). Author: GuideStar Type: Workbooks & Guides Date: Apr 1, 2016 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (194.31 KB) -
Community Action Resources for Inuit, Métis and First Nations: Evaluating This kit is a self-help tool for Aboriginal people who want to get a community development project off the ground. The series of six manuals contains information, tips, examples and ready-to-use charts that you can copy and use for yourself or to train others in your community. It is intended to be user-friendly, emphasizing questions such as what, why, when and how to accomplish the different steps of a community development project.
Author: Health Canada Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: May 7, 2007
Download (909.29 KB) -
Create a "Culture of Evaluation" In the June 20, 2007 issue the e-newsletter "Nonprofit Tools You Can Use" from the Fieldstone Alliance, Vince Hyman introduces an excerpt from the book Information Gold Mine: Innovative Uses of Evaluation by Paul Mattessich, et al. This excerpt discusses how a "culture of evaluation" is an important factor in increasing the likelihood an organization will be willing to change based on the results of an evaluation. The authors also offer some insights and advice on how organizations can promote this type of culture. Author: Vince Hyman (Field Stone Alliance); Paul Mattessich, et al. Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Jun 20, 2007 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
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
Download (1.69 MB) -
Current Advocacy Evaluation Practice Framing Paper Written for the Advocacy Evaluation Advances convening in January 2009, this paper summarizes the current state of advocacy evaluation practice. The paper identifies four evaluation design questions and then offers common responses to those questions: Who will do the evaluation?; What will the evaluation measure?; When will the evaluation take place?; and What methodology will the evaluation use?
Author: Julia Coffman Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 31, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (297 KB) -
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 Collection Tips: Build On What’s Out There Innovation Network's own tipsheet, "Build on What's Out There" discusses how to use existing tools to create your own data collection instruments, followed by a list of databases of instruments that are available on the Web. Author: Innovation Network, Inc. Type: Tipsheets & Paper Tools Date: May 15, 2005 Be the first to review this resource! Download (163.99 KB) -
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) -
Developmental Evaluation This presentation by Ricardo Wilson-Grau at the Michigan Association for Evaluation's annual conference is based on the concept of Developmental Evaluation (DE) elaborated by Michael Quinn Patton over the past 20 years and now crystallised in a book – Developmental Evaluation: Applying Complexity Concepts to Enhance Innovation and Use. The presentation presents an overview of DE, explains the basic theory behind DE, when can DE be used in evaluation, as well as the differences between DE and traditional evaluation. Author: Ricardo Wilson-Grau Type: Presentation Slides Date: May 3, 2000 Be the first to review this resource! Download (5.05 MB) -
eNonprofits Benchmark Study: Measuring Email Messaging, Online Fundraising, and Internet Advocacy Metrics This report provides a snapshot of key metrics and benchmarks for nonprofit e-mail communications, online fundraising, and online advocacy. According to the authors, "Organizations will be able to use this study to begin to understand how to look at and analyze their own online communications data. It will provide context and comparisons for organizations doing their own ongoing reporting."
Author: M & R Strategic Services and the Advocacy Institute Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 10, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.25 MB) -
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 Networks for Social Change: A Casebook In response to the growing interest of grantmakers and network builders, this casebook profiles nine evaluations that address key questions about network effectiveness while expanding what is known about assessment approaches that fit with how networks develop and function.
Author: Center for Evaluation Innovation Type: Research & Reports Date: Jul 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.12 MB) -
Evaluating Social Justice Advocacy: A Values Based Approach Although social justice is a concept inherent in many advocacy efforts, it often remains unspoken or is
ignored during the evaluation process. In some ways, the use of a social justice lens when evaluating
advocacy should be self-evident. If advocacy efforts aim for social justice outcomes, evaluations should look
for evidence that such outcomes have been achieved. But understanding just what social justice means can
be a challenge, as can knowing how to look for it in the context of complex and often long-term advocacy efforts.Author: Barbara Klugman Type: Research & Reports Date: Aug 1, 2010 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Download (334.73 KB)