My Fear of Evaluators
My secret embarrassment is that evaluation has always intimidated me. I think it’s because my first experience working with an evaluation consultant was on a huge, multi-year project and the evaluation was driven by the funder with little input from the program managers. Every stereotype of evaluations was true for this program – lots of jargon, reams of data of uncertain value, hidden agendas, and a huge bill at the end. After that, I have steered clear of formal, process-laden evaluation projects. In the back of my mind, though, I always knew that we need to have a way to understand, assess, and communicate what we do and why it matters.
I am happy to report that I’ve conquered my fear and anxiety, and become a believer. I will credit three terrific, understandable, and approachable professionals – Ellen Shelton of Wilder Research, Stacey Stockdill of EnSearch, Inc., and Leah Goldstein Moses of The Improve Group – for assisting in my personal growth. The definition I like is that evaluation looks at what you did, what happened, and what difference it made. Evaluation doesn’t have to be onerous, complicated, secretive, or expensive. After listening to these masters talk, and reading some plain language articles, I can now talk logic models and understand the difference between outputs and impact (though I still don’t want to get into regression analysis).
It’s critical that nonprofits can speak this language to improve the quality of our programs and to communicate with stakeholders. If you’re still harboring a secret fear, look at these resources for understandable guidance on the purpose and strategies for useful evaluation:
- Wilder Research has a series of tip sheets on evaluation concepts and techniques. Type “tip sheets” in the search box to see this collection of materials.
- The Improve Group has an overview of logic models.
- WK Kellogg Foundation is a leader in publishing resources for nonprofits on evaluation, all available in the Knowdgebase section of their Web site, including their workbook guide to developing logic models.