24 Sep, 2025

Making Sense Together: Community-Led Data Interpretation in Practice

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-09-24T12:26:53-04:00September 24th, 2025|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: community engagement, Data Driven, Data Sense-Making, Try This|0 Comments

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

Collecting data is only one part of the research process. The real power lies in how that data is interpreted, understood, and applied. Too often, interpretation is treated as an internal task—reserved for staff, consultants, or funders—while the communities who shaped the data are left out of the conversation.

When we open up the analysis phase to include participants, we gain context, nuance, and insights that transform findings from raw numbers into lived truths. This is where research shifts from being about communities to being with them.

Objective:

To engage community members in collaboratively interpreting research findings and generating insights that reflect their lived experiences.

This activity is ideal for:

Organizations conducting surveys, focus groups, or interviews with community members
Teams wanting to check assumptions and ensure findings resonate with participants’ realities
Coalitions or partnerships looking to build trust and deepen community ownership of data

What you’ll need:

A set of preliminary findings (e.g., survey results, themes from interviews, charts, or quotes)
Simple presentation materials (slides, posters, or handouts with visuals)
Markers, sticky notes, or virtual collaboration tools (if online)
60–90 minutes of meeting time
A facilitator comfortable guiding group discussions

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20 Aug, 2025

Try This: The Data-Driven Decision Tree Walk-Through

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2025-08-20T10:11:47-04:00August 20th, 2025|Categories: Program, Service, & Campaign Design|Tags: Capacity Building, Data Driven, Data Sense-Making, Evaluative Thinking, Try This|0 Comments

For access to the full activity, sign up for my newsletter.

Staff want to engage with data-driven decision making, but they don’t always have the time or space to do so.

When organizational leaders make decision-making processes transparent and collaborative, it supports staff, even if they can’t act on every idea right away.

This week, we’ll take a more hands-on approach. I’ll walk you through an activity you can use with your team to turn raw data into clear, actionable insights: The Data-Driven Decision Tree.

The Data-Driven Decision Tree is one of two activities taken from “Prioritize This: Data-Driven Decision Making“, a free resource provided to my newsletter subscribers. This activity helps break down program and service evaluation data into actionable steps based on feasibility and impact.

Objective:

Help your team turn data into clear, actionable next steps by exploring feasibility, mission alignment, and participant impact.

This activity is ideal for:

Staff who design and implement programs
Leadership responsible for strategic decisions
Any staff who collect, analyze, or share participant feedback

What you’ll need:

A copy of the Data-Driven Decision Tree. (Sign up for my newsletter to access the full exercise (including the decision tree visual) from Prioritize This: Data-Driven Decision Making.)
Program or evaluation data you want to analyze
A notetaker or facilitator to guide discussion
Time allotted: 30–45 minutes, depending on group size and number of data points

The steps:

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21 Jun, 2023

Try This: Data Sense Making

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-06-21T10:55:04-04:00June 21st, 2023|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Data Driven, Data Sense-Making, Evaluative Thinking, Try This|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:

Anyone responsible for leading data collection and sense making processes
Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking
Anyone interested in new ways to engaging stakeholders

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

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14 Jun, 2023

Before You Start Collecting Data, Read This

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-06-14T10:58:35-04:00June 14th, 2023|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Data Driven, Data Sense-Making, Evaluative Thinking|0 Comments

The first evaluation I ever led was for The Doula Project. My relationship to The Doula Project started with being a volunteer as a graduate student, and joining the board of directors a few years later.

Based on feedback from the organization’s Leadership Circle, there was a gradual decrease in volunteer shift sign-ups, and as a volunteer-led organization, the board wanted to understand why.

We learned that, despite having over 100 volunteers at the time and expanding to more clinics in most of New York City’s boroughs, volunteer engagement decreased. Why?

Once I graduated and began working full time, I didn’t have time to volunteer anymore. Majority of the volunteers that engaged in the evaluation had the same experience. Also, majority of the volunteers were transient. Many New York City college and graduate students tend to leave the city after graduation. For the ones that stay, transitioning from school to employment presents barriers on volunteering. And for The Doula Project, many of the shifts were during the work week.

Another thing the board and the Leadership Circle wanted to explore was the impact of the organization’s recruitment efforts. As a volunteer, most of the women I helped were women of color, and this was reflected in the experiences of the volunteer base. This was important because, while the organization served mostly people of color, majority of the volunteer base identified as white.

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15 Mar, 2023

Try This: Move Away from Funder-Driven Evaluation

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-03-15T14:54:50-04:00March 15th, 2023|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Data Sense-Making, Evaluative Thinking, program design, Try This|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:

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

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:

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Objective:

This activity is ideal for:

What you’ll need:

Objective:

This activity is ideal for:

What you’ll need:

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