29 Feb, 2024

Try This: Get Your Ideal Community Partners On Board

By |2024-02-28T21:57:39-05:00February 29th, 2024|Categories: Speaking & Facilitation|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you.

Engaging the right community partners to join your partnership is crucial to facilitating a process that’s mutually beneficial.

As you plan your introductory partnership meeting, you need to figure out who to invite, and why.

You see the value in working with these organizations, and you want them there to advance your mission.

The WHY behind your ask is important as these potential partners will ask:

What’s in it for me?

If they can’t see their value add to this partnership, they won’t join you. So, be prepared to show them.

This activity is ideal for:

  • Staff responsible for facilitating workshops, meetings, or trainings
  • Staff with experience in engaging community organizations

What you’ll need:

  • Your community organization partner invitation list
  • A method for taking notes
(more…)
20 Sep, 2023

Try This: In Person vs Online Workshop Prep

By |2023-09-20T15:21:17-04:00September 20th, 2023|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Try this out and let me know how it goes for you.

As an introverted workshop facilitator, I used to believe that online workshops were easier to facilitate than in person ones.

Now I see that online workshops aren’t easier or harder; they just have their own set of quirks.

There’s benefits and drawbacks to choosing a workshop format, especially if your workshop is being facilitated for the first time.

These considerations are just as important for previously facilitated workshops. The ability to pivot a workshop from and to either format requires an understanding of your workshop’s logistical needs, participant experiences, and workshop objectives.

This activity is ideal for:

  • Program staff responsible for facilitating workshops, meetings, or trainings

What you’ll need:

  • Your workshop’s agenda and activity breakdown
  • A method to take notes (laptop, whiteboard, Google Docs, pen/paper, etc.)

The steps:

(more…)
17 Aug, 2023

Try This: Update Your Logic Model

By |2023-08-16T22:18:56-04:00August 17th, 2023|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you.

When logic models are viewed as a valuable planning and learning tool and used with other programmatic tools, it increases the likelihood that your organization will use them.

So, let’s update your program’s logic model!

This activity is ideal for:

  • Anyone responsible for designing and/or implementing programs and services

What you’ll need:

  • A program or service logic model

The steps:

This activity assumes that your program has a logic model, as you won’t be able to update it if you don’t have one.

Visually, your logic model could look like this:

(more…)
21 Jun, 2023

Try This: Data Sense Making

By |2023-06-21T10:55:04-04:00June 21st, 2023|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Try this and let me know how it goes for you.

Getting clear on why you’re collecting data shifts your organization from being reactive to proactively data driven.

You know why you’re collecting data. You may even have data. What do you do with it?

Let’s try data sense making.

Data sense making is a partnership, guided by listening, collaboration, curiosity, and perspective sharing. Gather around and let’s try this activity.

This activity is ideal for:

What you’ll need:

  • A setup conducive to capturing ideas (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.). Make sure your notes are kept in a place where you can refer back to
  • Depending on the size of the evaluation, allocate between 1 – 3 hours of time for your session
  • Consider the time of the session and the lives of the participants
(more…)
15 Mar, 2023

Try This: Move Away from Funder-Driven Evaluation

By |2023-03-15T14:54:50-04:00March 15th, 2023|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Try this out and let me know how it goes for you.


I was a panelist on a recent webinar, discussing community and structural interventions to support maternal health equity.

During the conversation, I shared an evaluation struggle: 

Evaluation is used to meet funder expectations, instead of serving as a learning tool for organizations.

A few years ago, I worked with an organization that received funding to build their evaluation capacity.

It was fun because I felt like a professor, creating an easy to understand curriculum on evaluation. Also, the staff who self-selected into this process were tasked with training departmental staff in building their evaluation capacity.

Unfortunately, organizations aren’t oriented to see evaluation in this way. Program evaluation is viewed as a means to an end, a funder request to confirm that funding was spent as intended. They’re asked to conduct “rigorous” evaluations on “evidence-based” programs, without any conversation on what rigor and evidence-based actually mean to an organization.

 Before an evaluation begins, I recommend working with programming staff to clarify the program’s purpose AND what program success looks like for staff. Then, you use this to create an evaluation process that balances staff priorities and funder expectations.

This activity is ideal for:

What you’ll need:

  • A setup conducive to capturing ideas (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.). Make sure your notes are kept in a place where you can refer back to

The steps:

The goal of this activity is explore what it means to move away from funder-driven evaluation.

A funder-driven evaluation centers funder priorities over staff and program participants. In order to move away from funder-driven evaluation, these commitments are needed:

(more…)

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