Research & Evaluation Archives - Page 2 of 8

27 Oct, 2021

Try This: Prioritizing Data Findings

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-10-27T14:58:54-04:00October 27th, 2021|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Data Sense-Making, Stakeholders, Try This|0 Comments

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

On the road to becoming grassroots and data driven, it’s tempting to start collecting data as soon as possible to determine your impact.

From funders and program participants to community leaders and policy makers, data you’ve gleaned from focus groups, informant interviews, and surveys juggle voices and perspectives of many stakeholders.

But once you have all this data, what do you do with it? And how do you prioritize these voices?

Here are 3 ways (from easy-to-do to more time-consuming) to prioritize your data findings.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone responsible for leading data sense making processes
Anyone interested in participating in data sense making processes
Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking into their work

Here’s what you need:

Whatever setup you use to capture your ideas (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.) but make sure it’s kept in a place that you can refer back to

The steps:

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20 Oct, 2021

Be Grassroots and Data Driven

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-10-20T09:29:41-04:00October 20th, 2021|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Evaluative Thinking, Grassroots, Nonprofits|0 Comments

*Starting with a simple question can lead to bigger impact.*

What does it mean to be data-driven as a nonprofit or smaller grassroots organization?

You’re navigating being responsive to the communities you serve, providing services and programming that provide a more just and equitable world, while also being responsive to demands on your organizational capacity.

Despite anecdotes and maybe a survey here or there that generally confirms you’re doing a good job, there’s still a demand for more proof, and it usually comes from whoever is holding the purse strings.

Being data-driven is bigger than the numbers you see and the stories you hear.

It’s also bigger than taking the numbers and molding them into stories that not only speak to hearts and minds, but generate research ideas and influences policy change.

So much of being data-driven prioritizes the demands and requests of external stakeholders, particularly funders.

In fact, many evaluation projects I’ve led started with the client organization seeking an external evaluator. They mentioned doing an external evaluation their grant as a deliverable, and now it’s anticipated by their funder.

Even with this as a deliverable, interpersonal barriers to being data-driven persists.

Being data-driven means moving beyond decision-making that primarily benefit funders and external stakeholders. It means making intentional learning investments that champion questioning, reflection, and action that directly benefit your staff AND stakeholders.

So how can nonprofits and small grassroots organizations become more data-driven? Here’s one simple, accessible way to get started:

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21 Oct, 2020

Try This: A Simple Way to Get Program Feedback

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T21:00:38-04:00October 21st, 2020|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program design, program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

*Try this out and let me know how it goes.*

I enjoy coming up with things on the fly, and today’s Try This is one of those moments.

I was hired by a client organization earlier on in my consulting business to conduct several focus groups for their program participants, all of whom were young high school girls attending a 6-week summer program.

During the first two focus groups, one question I asked was, “What would you change about this program?”

Interestingly, the participants enjoyed the program so much that they didn’t have any ideas on how they could improve the program.

When I got to the last two focus groups, I decided to change the question.

Before I share how I changed the question, let’s make one thing clear: It’s very possible your program participants really do enjoy your program, and there’s a lot of information to glean from this. But this client organization specifically wanted feedback on how to evolve the program and they noticed that, outside of exclaiming they enjoy the program, participants didn’t give in prior feedback on what they enjoyed and what they’d like to see based on previous evaluations.

In response to my client’s request, I shifted the question.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone responsible for developing, running and evaluating programs and services
Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking

Here’s what you need:

Whatever setup you use for focus groups (though this can also be created as a survey, key informant interview, or as a World Cafe)

The steps:

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16 Oct, 2019

Try This: The Cookie Exercise

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:44:55-04:00October 16th, 2019|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

*You don’t have to eat the cookie, but it might be tempting.*

Evaluative thinking involves identifying assumptions, posing thoughtful questions, pursuing deeper understanding through reflection and perspective-taking and making informed decisions in program planning, implementation, and evaluation.

It’s a key component to building evaluation capacity within an organization, company, or other entity. While I still conduct evaluations for clients, I’m finding myself more drawn to helping organizations build up this capacity so they can do it all themselves.

The primary reasons organizations conduct evaluations is to find out if 1) the program is meeting the needs of its intended audience(s), 2) if it’s financially feasible to maintain the program or service as is or if it needs to be scaled up or down, or 3) if it should be scrapped altogether.

It’s not enough for your staff to know the ins and outs of doing an evaluation. They need to harness the ability to think evaluatively about the programs they’re developing.

And what better way to try this out than with cookies?

Grab 3 different brands of cookies and let’s get started.

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone responsible for developing, running and evaluating programs and services
Students interested in evaluative thinking

Here’s what you need:

If you’re the baking type: Bake three different types of the same cookie (using different chips or filling, different ingredients, etc.)
If you’re the store-bought type: Buy 3 different brands of the same cookie type. In order for this to work, the brands cannot have any recognizable marks in the design that will give clues on who makes them. In other words, you can have 3 brands of cookies that look like Oreos, as long as each brand doesn’t have “Oreo” labeled on them (we’re trying to avoid biases here)
Sheets of paper
Writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers)

As a heads-up: You don’t have to eat the cookies. But you might, for testing purposes.

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20 Feb, 2019

Try This: Increase Your Staff and Stakeholders’ Engagement and Collaboration

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:25:18-04:00February 20th, 2019|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Try This|0 Comments

When a program is developed, it’s done so for various reasons, including based on current and relevant research, anecdotal and collected feedback and evidence from participants, funders, and more.

But even the most well-developed programs can suffer if your staff and stakeholders aren’t engaged enough to care about how the program is designed to work beyond focusing on outcomes and impact only.

As I’ve continued to shift more into engaging my clients in a more participatory way, we’ve been working together to develop a more collaborative process that generates a culture of learning about how they’re developing their programs and how their program recipients are responding to it, rather than merely meeting metrics commissioned by someone else.

Compared to previous Try This posts, what I’m sharing today is more of a process rather than actual activities. And for the purposes of today’s post, I’m labeling this process the “staff and stakeholder engagement and collaborative process“. The actual name depends on the client project I’m working on (for example, with one client, it’s called the “evaluation working group” while the process is called the “evaluation working group” with another client).

Regardless of the name, the process is the same: Bringing together staff and stakeholders to develop program goals, discover insights into how participants are engaging with the program, and develop a strategy for routine program evaluation and course-correction and generating buy-in among your staff and stakeholders.

This activity is ideal for:

Nonprofit and social services staff interested in developing more engagement and collaboration between staff and stakeholders (i.e. program participants, board members, and other supporters)
Nonprofit and social services staff that are responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of programs, services, and strategies

Here’s what you need:

(more…)

Try This: Prioritizing Data Findings

Be Grassroots and Data Driven

Try This: A Simple Way to Get Program Feedback

Try This: The Cookie Exercise

Try This: Increase Your Staff and Stakeholders’ Engagement and Collaboration

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