Evaluation

Introduction

Measuring the success and health of your organization, your programs and your neighborhood.

Overview

How to make evaluation your tool for success instead of an added burden. This section lists consultants who help your group set up your own evaluation systems and/or do outside evaluations.

Page Index

  • Key Issues
  • Common Problems and Solutions
  • Successful Strategies
  • Annotated Web Resources
  • Topic Library
  • Sub-Topics and Vendors


    • Key Issues Related to this Topic

  • Make evaluation your tool for success instead of an added burden. While nonprofits often engage in program or organization-wide evaluation at the request of funders, your organization’s volunteers, staff and participants also want to know if they are spending their time wisely. The simple steps of planning, action, reflection and celebration can be built into every project and into the annual calendar of your organization.

  • Evaluation is best when included from the start. When your organization starts a new year, and when volunteers start a new project, it is good to ask “How will we measure our success?” This adds focus to your planning and action, and gives you the opportunity to gather “before” and “after” data for comparison.

  • Keep it simple. Simple questions and ways to collect the data you want, which actually get used, are best.

  • Basics of evaluation. Reliability- means testing the tools you use to see if they collect accurate data. Validity- means that you are making observations and drawing conclusions appropriate to the information that you are collecting. Quantitative data- means counting the results (i.e. numbers of participants, changes in crime rates, test scores of students.) Qualitative data- means the stories behind the numbers (i.e. stories from participants and community members, observations of staff and volunteers.)

  • Simple data-collection tools. To track numbers of participants, etc., keep a file for the sign in sheets and other tracking sheets which staff and volunteers use for each project. To collect stories and observations encourage staff to keep notes for each project, asking simple reflective questions of the participants and volunteers at the end of each activity. Taking photos is a wonderful way to document results for funders and participants.

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    Common Problems and Solutions

  • People “hate” evaluation. No one likes to be judged by an “outsider.” To win participation in evaluation, have your residents and stakeholders design it themselves. Most of the evaluators listed in this Resource Guide are experienced in facilitating participant-driven evaluation. A good alternative to boring evaluation forms is a short, well-facilitated group discussion to evaluate an event, project or meeting.

  • No time to evaluate. Collecting information as you go can save a lot of time when it comes time to write reports to funders. The simple data-collection tools listed above can be added into your weekly routine without adding extra work.

  • Limited resources for evaluation. The simple data-collection tools listed above can be added into your weekly routine with little added expense. Student researchers from the U of MN CURA's Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization are available to provide, high quality, free research help.

  • When to hire an outside evaluator? If your organization is working on a large project, with a large budget, which you would like to see continued in the future, within your neighborhood or in other communities, an outside evaluator can help you design your evaluation questions & tools to provide useful and credible data and analysis. Outside researchers often can help you set up the evaluation systems which your staff and volunteers can then implement.

  • It is hard to make direct links between your group’s actions and changes in your community. While your group may want to claim credit for increasing property values and/or decreasing crime rates, many influences from within and beyond your neighborhood are also at play. Reflecting on this larger “system” of influences that are at work in your community can help your group to be “strategic,” which means doing a few key actions each year that can have a large, positive “ripple effect” in your community.

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    Successful Strategies

  • Looking for change over the short, medium and long term. Program outcome data helps you see how you are meeting short-term objectives. Community success measures can guide your group’s efforts in over 3-year spans of time. Community indicators can guide your group’s efforts are a win/win for neighborhoods and funders. Your group can define it’s own measures of success for your neighborhood revitalization efforts. This can boost the morale of your volunteers and providing your funders with the results-oriented accountability they are looking for.

  • Success measures Project-specific evaluation means setting success measures at the beginning of a project and supporting volunteers and staff to track numbers, gather stories and to reflect on how well their success measures have been met. When volunteers and staff are given time to reflect at the end of a project, useful lessons for how to improve a project in the future and how to improve your organization as a whole often can be found. The Center for Neighborhoods has worked on tools in assessing Success Measures - contact us for more info.

  • Organization-wide evaluation can be done at the end or beginning of a fiscal year as preparation for establishing next year’s budget, or after annual board elections, to build a common knowledge base between new and returning board volunteers. Organization-wide assessment is also helpful when a group is experiencing a major transition (moving from a planning phase into implementation, during a staff transition, or to uncover underlying sources of conflict.) A simple outline for self-assessment is S.W.A.T. (strengths, weaknesses, assets, & threats.)

  • Neighborhood-wide assessment is valuable to do every 3 to 5 years, to refocus the vision and mission of your group, based on the changing circumstances in your neighborhood. This neighborhood-wide evaluation is also the basis of developing a comprehensive community development plan (check the "Comprehensive Community Development" section of this Guide.) This process of neighborhood evaluation used to be called a “needs assessment.” Current thinking in the field of community development recommends doing an assessment of community needs and assets (see the section on "Asset Mapping" for more information).

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    Annotated WebLinks

  • Success Measures Project
    Development Leadership Network   06/15/04
    Applicable resources from The Development Leadership Network's Success Measures Project

  • Evaluation Tools
    MAP for Nonprofits   06/15/04
    A variety of information on evaluation tools and resources

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    Library

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    Vendors by Sub-Topic

    Evaluation Training  
        c4n
        Crossroads Resource Center
        CURA- Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization
        Effective Communities Project
        MAP for Nonprofits
        Minnesota Council of Nonprofits
        Rainbow Research
        The Future Now
        The Terry Group
        The Voice in Phillips
        Wilder Foundation- Services to Organizations


    Neighborhood Indicators  
        Alliance for Sustainability
        Center for Neighborhood Technology
        Center for Neighborhoods
        Crossroads Resource Center
        Wilder Foundation- Services to Organizations


    Program / Project Evaluation  
        Allan Malkis Consulting
        CURA- Neighborhood Planning for Community Revitalization
        Minnesota Council of Nonprofits
        Rainbow Research
        Wilder Foundation-Community Matters Newsletter


    Success Measures  
        Center for Neighborhoods
        Wilder Foundation- Services to Organizations


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