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Typically our blogs focus on evaluation techniques that are specific to program evaluations. But what about the organizations executing the programs? Is there a way to evaluate an organization with the goal of improving how it functions?
Coghlan and colleagues (2003) suggest that the appreciative inquiry method can be a constructive approach to evaluating the function of an organization. Appreciative inquiry is used more often in the private sector, but is being seen more and more as an evaluation approach with applications in the public sector as well.
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The concept of evidence-based policy was examined in a recent article by Pawson and colleagues (2011).The authors discussed the current trend of “evidence-based everything” and the impact this approach can have on policy making.They examined the example of proposing a policy banning smoking in a car when there are children present and the difficulty in providing conclusive evidence to support the policy.
Pawson and colleagues highlight the ongoing theme of their article in the following Donald Rumsfeld quote:
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If you want to know if your program’s participants mastered the objectives of the program, the Success Case Method might be for you. (See this report for a summary of this method). This approach involves focusing on those individuals who were either particularly successful or particularly unsuccessful at learning your program’s objectives.
The approach is very purposeful, in that you don’t select a random sample of participants; you go to participants at both ends of the learner spectrum to gather information.
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Having more demands on a program than a budget will allow was common well _before _the market went into decline. Today, programs have even fewer resources than several years ago, but they are still expected to maintain all documented aspects of their programs, including evaluation, which makes the need for efficiency highly critical. How do you carry out an evaluation on a tightly constrained budget?
A common approach is to first have a discussion with the evaluator about the various evaluation designs that may be appropriate for this particular program.
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A recent New York Times article by Stephanie Strom describes how two philanthropists, Pierre Omidyar of eBay and Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, have each created a nonprofit organization to serve other nonprofits. The primary goal of The Omidyar Network and The Management Center is to provide business consulting services and human resource advice that will improve the managerial skills among directors of nonprofits.
Often, leaders in nonprofit organizations are promoted based on their experience or content knowledge, without necessarily having the business skills needed to run the organization.
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A report released by Public /Private Ventures in March 2011 titled “Priorities for a New Decade: Making (More) Social Programs Work (Better)," discussed a critical problem with the evaluation process for non-profit programs: Often times, evaluators do not collaborate with a program and therefore programs are passively evaluated. In addition, funders may not ask for the right evidence and an often impractical report is usually produced months later. This gives the non-profit no voice in the evaluation process and no time to make adjustments or improvements in their program.
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A number of our evaluation projects are community based, and at times grants are funded to unite community agencies, so they can work more closely together to achieve their goals. How do you determine how well organizations are collaborating? How do you improve their collaboration? As a result, we’re always looking for evaluation tools that are straightforward and provide complete, easily interpretable results.
In their 2009 study, Cross and colleagues1evaluated interagency collaboration using a mixed-method design, which is not an easy task.
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In February, President Obama proposed the use of social impact bonds for seven pilot programs to elicit better results from social services. In an effort to reduce support for programs that are not effective, social impact bonds would create accountability for programs to succeed. Specifically, nonprofits, particularly foundations, would pay for the programs up front with the support of the government. The nonprofit and government would agree on performance measures used to evaluate the program’s success.
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Ahh..the focus group! This is perhaps one of the most well-known evaluation methods. What makes focus groups so popular? First, a focus group is typically a small group of people (<10) who are guided through a structured conversation by a facilitator (likely the evaluator in this case). The evaluator will work with stakeholders to identify who should be a part of the focus group, the purpose of the focus group, and what questions should be asked.
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_After a bit of a hiatus from the blog, we are happy to be back! We plan to post a new blog entry each month and hope our entries incite some discussion among you in the comments section. _
So to get things rolling, we have a question to pose to you…
What constitutes a good evaluation?
Think about that for a minute.
Good questions? Good design? Good data? Good analysis?
