24 May, 2017

Asset Mapping as a Community Organizing Tool

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:34:14-04:00May 24th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research|0 Comments

Let’s say you are part of an advocacy group that promotes the health benefits of vegetarianism.

You attend a community town hall where residents speak their concerns over what’s occurring in the community and request resources that can benefit the community.

You stand up to the microphone, introduce yourself and your advocacy group, and make a suggestion to host a gathering for residents on vegetarianism. You share all the good statistics: Eating a plant-based diet high in fiber, folic acid, and a whole bunch of vitamins can reduce high cholesterol, lead to better weight management, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of heart disease. You make a suggestion of having your group facilitate a number of workshops in the community.

A resident raises her hand and stands up. Eating lots of fruits and vegetables sounds good and all, she says, but she and other residents have tried unsuccessfully to bring a farmers market to the community. There’s community support for a farmers market as it will aid in increasing food security in the community, but there are concerns that getting food at a farmers market will be more expensive compared to the community grocery store. Also, the community cannot decide which area would be best to have the farmers market. The community grocery store is located near the community’s most used subway station. And speaking of the grocery store–it’s not a very pleasant shopping experience. Not only does the meat smell rancid, the fruits and vegetables look questionable. Many of the items are past the expiration date, and the store’s electronic benefits transfer (EBT) system doesn’t work most of the time. Having a farmers market in the neighborhood will not only give the community another option to buy food, but they can also use their EBT cards to buy items at the farmers market.

Another resident stands up. He’s interested in creating a community garden because he likes the idea of growing his own food so he doesn’t have to deal with the community grocery store. There are plenty of vacant lots in the community, and he knows of a large lot of land near the community’s recreation center. There’s a”For Sale” sign but he doesn’t know the first thing in purchasing land and wants to know if other member are interested in buying the lot with him. In fact, he has no idea how to grow fruits and vegetables.

One of the most social-worky phrase you will ever hear is “meet the client where they’re at”. When you’re working with an individual (or a community, for this example), you may have your own agenda. Despite best intentions, if you can’t understand what matters to the community, their concerns and their successes, you will never find a way “in”. In order to build a connection between yourself and the community, you have to establish trust. Your advocacy group’s ultimate goal is helping communities eat healthier, and this community is interested doing that, but maybe not in the way you envision. So, what’s one way to marry your goal to the goals of this community?

Conduct a community asset map.

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8 Mar, 2017

Try This: Ask Better Questions

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:28:59-04:00March 8th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research, Try This|0 Comments

Starting today, we’re going to ask better questions. Questions that allow you to dig deeper to unearth richer experiences. This is crucial in gaining a better understanding of why someone keeps (or stops) coming back to your programs, products or services.

When I say “dig deeper”, what I’m getting at is being strategic in how we ask questions. There’s a difference between asking questions that allow you to truly hear what someone is saying, and asking questions because you’re searching for certain types of responses.

Digging deeper, goes beyond “I love it!” or “I wouldn’t change a thing”. People are coming back to you for a reason, and these reasons can help you enhance what you’re offering, and can also inspire you to come up with creative and engaging solutions to address other needs that you’re currently not addressing.

Tips and examples

Good questions are:

Unbiased
Empowering
Provide a safe space for the person to feel comfortable responding to
Stretch the person who is responding

I’ve highlighted the last point for a reason. Here’s an example:

Back in 2015, I facilitated a few focus groups for a client, a nonprofit that provides social justice oriented feminist leadership for young women of color. The focus groups were for the organization’s 6-week summer leadership program for young women of color in the New York City area. The organization wanted to know, among other things, how effective the program had been that summer.

Okay, sounds easy. I did a few site visits during the 5th week of the program to facilitate the focus groups. I had my questions ready based on the evaluation questions the organization sought out to explore. During the first focus group, I asked “Looking back on everything you’ve learned during the past 5 weeks, can you share something that you would change?” Some of the responses I got looked similar to “I loved everything!” or “I wouldn’t change a thing” or “Everything was good”.

Initially, I chalked it up to the participants being teenagers. Then I realized they were responding this way because of HOW I asked the question.

So, I tried a different approach for the second and third focus groups:

Looking back on everything you’ve learned during this program, if you could rebuild this program from the ground up, based on your own needs and interests, what would it look like?

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8 Feb, 2017

Try This: Roll The Dice

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:05:03-04:00February 8th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Try This|0 Comments

Last month I shared The World Cafe as an activity you can use to engage participants outside of traditional means of collecting data. Today, let’s look at one activity you can use to guide participants in making sense of it all and drawing their own conclusions.

“Rolling the dice” usually means “let’s see what happens”. For this activity, it takes on a whole new meaning.

(Though technically, “making sense of it all and drawing your own conclusions” could also mean “seeing what happens”, but humor me for a bit.)

Here’s what you need

Two boxes that are roughly the same size
12 sheets of paper
A marker
Tape
Tape recorder

Ways to use this activity

I’ve used this activity in two ways: facilitating focus groups and data interpretation meetings.

Focus groups are generally used to gather feedback, and I’ve been asked to facilitate them as part of a program’s evaluation. In this context, each side of the die represents an evaluation question posed to the focus group.

In the context of a data interpretation meeting (also known as a “data party”), each side of the die either illustrates a piece of quantitive data (such as percentages from a survey or a report connected to the evaluation) or a piece of qualitative data (such as themes identified and coded from transcribing responses from a focus group). In simplest terms, coding identifies themes occurring across focus groups, informant interviews, observation notes, etc. With coding you can identify overarching themes as well as themes specific to the group or people in question, and this can be illustrated as a quote, percentage, etc.

Let’s create our dice

Take one sheet of paper
For a focus group: Write out an evaluation question you want to pose to the group
For a data party: Write out a theme you coded
tape the sheet of paper to one side of a die
Repeat for each side until all sides are covered

And that’s it.

Now, let’s see this in action

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12 Jan, 2017

Try This: The World Cafe

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T19:02:13-04:00January 12th, 2017|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research, Try This|0 Comments

What’s the first image that comes to mind when you think of a focus group?

Mostly likely a small group of people–typically between 8-12 in size–gathered around a table, responding to a facilitator’s questions while being recorded. There may be some snacks involved.

Focus groups are a qualitative data activity used to gather feedback on a product, program or service from a group of people who have some type of commonality, such as age, race, gender, work experience, etc. The information they share can help the organizations or businesses gain a better understanding of why something is working, why it’s not working, and how that something impacts their lived experience.

If you’ve ever facilitated a focus group, you might know how boring they can be. And if you’ve been in a focus group, you definitely know how boring they can be. But what I’ve noticed is this: Focus groups are not boring, technically. It’s how they are structured that makes them boring. There are more engaging ways to conduct a focus group. One of those methods is the World Cafe.

First, some background

From The World Café: Living Knowledge through Conversations that Matter, the World Cafe is a methodology that invites large group dialogue. While in a basic focus group, participants are asked a question and discuss it openly, the World Cafe takes it a step further by allowing for a larger group of participants to be in the space. While they are discussing the question amongst themselves, the conversation flows more freely because it’s a conversation amongst the group rather than the group responding directly to the facilitator. Also, the group is helping the facilitator collect data in a more dynamic, participatory way.

Based on recommended World Cafe design principles, the focus of the World Cafe:

Set the context– What is the purpose for bringing people into the space, and what do you (and the group) want to achieve?
Create hospitable space– Pay attention to how the space is set up. Is it comfortable and inviting? If accessibility is a need, does the space function so that those with certain needs are comfortable in the space?
Explore questions that matter– You can explore a single question or you can develop questions that build on each other. Either way, you’ll be able to synthesize the data to explore common themes
Encourage everyone’s contribution– Encourage everyone to participate in ways that work for them. While some find it easier to express themselves verbally, others may find it better to draw or simply listen
Connect diverse perspectives– The key to the World Cafe is sharing perspectives. When participants move about the room (more on this later), they’re meeting new people, seeing ideas and thoughts that have been generated, and sharing new insights
Listen together for patterns and insights– Shared listening is the key factor in the success of a World Cafe. This is the way to look for themes. Encourage people to listen for what is not being spoken along with what is being shared
Share collective discoveries– Once the World Cafe is complete, invite participants to reflect on patterns, themes and questions expressed and to share them with the larger group

Here’s a video explanation of the process.

Here’s what you’ll need:

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16 Nov, 2016

What Do You Want to See in a Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T18:57:52-04:00November 16th, 2016|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Announcements, reproductive justice|0 Comments

Share Your Feedback on the Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit!

Over the past several months, I’ve been focusing on creating a cohesive fusion between what I provide for clients: education and action planning using the Reproductive Justice (RJ) framework, education and training on program evaluation, and using design thinking to create programs and services for women and girls of color.

I became a Generative Fellow through CoreAlign’s Generative Fellows in March 2016 where my primary interest at the time was on developing a method for evaluating RJ programs and services.

Evaluation is an ever-evolving field, but since my first Fellows retreat in March, I’ve grown more interested in design thinking and how it can be used as a new entry point into the Reproductive Justice movement. As a result, I switched my project’s focus during my final Fellows retreat in September.

I’ve reached out to nonprofit professionals, community leaders, students, teachers and more, whom I hope this toolkit will be used by. I asked them about their struggles in applying the RJ framework into their professional and personal lives, and their struggles in articulating this framework to others. Also, in working with former and current clients, I’ve noticed something else: What people think Reproductive Justice looks likes isn’t really Reproductive Justice at all.

Why is that? Some work in environments that are more “Reproductive Health” or “Reproductive Rights” without a focus on intersectionality (one of the core principles of Reproductive Justice). This makes it hard to promote a framework that’s not acknowledged in the space, that’s not acknowledged, or is acknowledged but there will need to be a major shift in order for RJ to be centered.

And when you’re developing programs and campaigns that aren’t grounded in solid program theory and mutual collaboration, it won’t matter how well you know the RJ framework and what to include it in what you do.

Enter the Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit. (…or something like that. This is the name I’m going with for now.)

This toolkit focuses on a 3-part system: 1) A strong foundation in RJ, 2) solid program/campaign development, and 3) collaborative and engaging evaluation activities.

It’s my hope that this Action Toolkit will serve as a go-to reference for nonprofits, schools, community groups, and government agencies on creating collaborative and impactful Reproductive Justice programs and campaigns in their communities.

And I need your feedback! I’ve created a survey to get your opinion on what crucial elements you feel should be included. Share your feedback and let me know what you think. My goal is to begin piloting this toolkit with nonprofits, community groups, and more in late Winter 2016-early Spring 2017. As a token of appreciation, when you complete the survey, you’ll receive The Revolution Starts with Me! the self care zine I developed with my co-facilitator Adaku Utah.

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Take the Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit survey today, and share below in the comments section what you’d like to see in the toolkit.

Like this post? Subscribe to the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive resources, advice, and tips to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

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Asset Mapping as a Community Organizing Tool

Try This: Ask Better Questions

Tips and examples

Looking back on everything you’ve learned during this program, if you could rebuild this program from the ground up, based on your own needs and interests, what would it look like?

Try This: Roll The Dice

Here’s what you need

Ways to use this activity

Let’s create our dice

Now, let’s see this in action

Try This: The World Cafe

First, some background

Here’s what you’ll need:

What Do You Want to See in a Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit?

RAISE YOUR VOICE: Take the Reproductive Justice Action Toolkit survey today, and share below in the comments section what you’d like to see in the toolkit.

Like this post? Subscribe to the Raise Your Voice newsletter to receive resources, advice, and tips to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

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