My name is Susana Morales and I am the Co-Founder of Communities in Collaboration | Comunidades en Colaboración. I am also a member of La Red TIG, YFE TIG, and the IC TIG and locally support the San Francisco Bay Area Evaluators and Applied Researchers group. During this short piece, I want to discuss working with culturally-driven organizations that are doing evaluations for the first time.

Recently, we started working with two organizations that serve Latino populations around issues of mental health. The organizations are full of well-intended mental health providers and whole-hearted community health care workers. They provide therapy, connect clients to other community providers, support them in navigating other pressing issues such as immigration, housing, and economic instability. Additionally, they are part of state evaluation working towards understanding how cultura es salud, how culture is health. They have to balance between being in the front lines of life and death concerns and having to ask their clients to complete consent forms and surveys.

Lesson Learned: How do you work with organizations that are not ready for an evaluation and have to do it? Earn their trust. They need to trust that you will take care of them and walk next to them as they figure things out. I have learned that earning trust allows me to be a better evaluator, a better critic when needed, even a better data enforcer even when I must.

Hot Tips: Here are some tips on how to develop a positive trusting relationship.

1. Cree en tu corazoncito. Evaluate with your heart. Many organizations do work of the heart and care deeply about the communities they serve. When you show up as the evaluator, also let your heart show up. Listen with empathy.
2. No nomas vallas a las fiestas. Show up. The communities which we serve face many challenges and the organizations for which we work are always short-staffed. We not only show up when for data collection, we show up when they have community events, need extra volunteers, even for parties.
3. Celebra. Celebrate the small wins. Embarking on an evaluation for the first time can be daunting and confusing. The small wins matter.
4. Yes, food. My mamá taught me to always bring something to share when I am invited to someone’s house. Pan dulce for a morning meeting if appropriate, fruit for an afternoon meeting.
5. Siempre Always greet. No matter how often you see your clients, always greet them as if you haven’t seen them in years. I’m a hugger, and, yes, I do ask for permission but I always greet people with authentic enthusiasm.

And remember las palabras se las lleva el viento make your actions count.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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This is Asma Ali, of AA & Associates, and Grisel Robles-Schrader, of Northwestern University, from Chicago. Along with many colleagues, we are core members of the Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse (LaRED) Topical Interest Group. As members of LaRED, we are often asked whether the group is only for Latinx evaluators. By design, LaRED is inclusive of both Latinx evaluators and those who are interested in being “allies” for Latinx communities. We have been thinking about what this means as our TIG has evolved.

The Community Toolbox defines an ally as “a person who supports, empowers, or stands up for another person or a group.”  Although we each bring different perspectives and experiences to our work as a 1st generation Latina and a first generation Indian-American women, our evaluation work has called us to be “allies” alongside diverse communities through our AEA efforts.

AEA TIGs offer unique opportunities for evaluators to develop alliances across various intersectional dimensions, such as communities of shared characteristics or evaluation approaches. Many people feel that the word “ally” has lost its meaning because it is overused.  For us, being an evaluation ally is entwined with our everyday professional and personal roles. Being an ally requires careful consideration of our own role(s) in relationship to the goals and advancement of diverse community groups. As we reflect on our ally role, we have compiled some tips for active engagement as an evaluation ally:

Hot Tips: Approaches & Reflections in Your Allyship Journey 

Seek Out Opportunities to Learn. Take time to learn about different cultures, communities and histories. Evaluators often have the opportunity to connect with people that have different experiences from their own. Embracing learning from others, examining our own biases, and reflecting on the privileges we bring to different spaces is often part of an evaluator’s role. Learn more here.

Engage Diverse Perspectives. Engage diverse stakeholders in all phases of evaluation. Stakeholders provide valuable insights that can inform the process and results. They can champion evaluation efforts and provide feedback on the feasibility and relevance of evaluation recommendations. Learn more here.

Use Your Expertise. As an ally, you may be called to actively advocate for issues that are important to the community.  This may done through your evaluation work or other roles with stakeholders. Learn more here.

Handle Missteps. Inevitably when working with diverse groups, missteps and misunderstandings are likely to occur. Staying engaged, being open to feedback, asking questions, and learning together are critical in evaluation ally work. For more resources click here.

Are there evaluation experiences where you have served as an ally to another group? What was your role? What did you learn?

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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Hello, we are evaluators, researchers and practitioners who work alongside Latinx communities in Austin, TX. Josephine V. Serrata, Ph.D. is an independent evaluation consultant and licensed psychologist, Gabriela Hurtado Alvarado, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and research program manager at the University of Texas at Austin, and Laurie Cook Heffron, Ph.D. is a licensed social worker and professor at St. Edward’s University. This post focuses on a recent project involving immigrant Latina women who experienced family detention while seeking asylum at the US border.

As promoters of culturally relevant research and evaluation, we strongly feel that evaluators who are working within Latinx communities must develop an understanding of the multiple ways that systemic trauma (e.g., environments and organizations that give rise to trauma and sustain it) impacts Latinx communities collectively. We would like to share some lessons learned from our recent project as an example of the intersecting traumas that Latinx communities may face.

Lesson Learned #1: Asylum Seekers Are Often Fleeing Severe Violence and Trauma. For example, violence in the Northern Triangle and Mexico has increased significantly in the past few years. These areas have often been dominated by criminal groups causing increases in the rates of gender-based violence, extortion, gang violence, and human trafficking.  These perilous circumstances push people to flee their countries of origin to pursue safety. Evaluators should consider what having this experience may mean when working with these populations.

Lesson Learned #2: Our Systems are Replicating Violence and Trauma. Individuals that have been detained describe that immigration detention centers in the U.S. are restrictive environments where they struggle to get their needs met. Previously detained women noted that physical and mental health services are inadequate. Asylum seekers also have to describe their experiences of trauma during a credible fear interview, which can exacerbate stress and be retraumatizing.

Lesson Learned #3: The Impact of Systemic Trauma is Far Reaching. The current political climate has created stressful and unsafe circumstances for Latinos living in the U.S. In fact, hate crimes against Latinos have increased significantly since 2014. This does not only include immigrants, but also permanent residents and U.S. citizens. Although researchers have found that Latinos are now experiencing more anxiety, PTSD, as well as other emotional and behavioral health symptoms, it is also important to remember the resiliency and strength of the Latinx community as they actively resist systemic oppression.

Rad Resources:

This document shares more information about understanding trauma and trauma-informed care through a Latinx lens.

This measure is a good starting point for evaluators who are evaluating trauma-informed practice.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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¡Saludos! We are Lisa Aponte-Soto, Grisel M. Robles-Schrader, and Arthur Hernandez co-chairs of the Latinx Responsive Evaluation Discourse Network or La RED TIG. Lisa Aponte-Soto, PhD, MHA serves as Associate Director of Community Engaged Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Grisel Robles-Schrader, MPA is the Research Portfolio Manager, Center for Community Health and MPH Field Experience Director, Programs in Public Health at Northwestern University. Arthur Hernandez is a professor at the University of Incarnate Word.

This week La RED highlights ways to advance evaluation for and with Latinx communities. As we reflect on the array of topics, we want to emphasize the heterogeneity of the Latinx population and the importance of not generalizing across subgroups, nationalities, or geographic areas. Latinx are vastly diverse with distinct experiences, values, and linguistic differences. Evaluators need to tend to each community based on its ethnic identity and geographic location.  This is not solely a social justice issue, though that is an extremely important consideration to be sure.  It is a matter of technical rigor and ensuring the processes, outcomes, interpretations and implications of evaluation are sound, reasonable and respectful – all ethical requirements of the conduct of any evaluation.

The following tips extract from our experiences working with Latinx communities to conduct evaluation and assessments.

Hot Tips:

1. Evaluation Approach – Adapting a participatory approach that is inclusive of the perspective of Latinx can be beneficial in countering historical experiences with misuse and abuse of personal and health information that may place undue physical harm or in some cases jeopardize status in the U.S. Inclusivity will help frame the evaluation instruments and tools and build trust.
2. Terminology – La RED prefer to use Latinx an ethnic identifier because it is a gender-neutral term to reference individuals of Latin American descent. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that there is variability in how the Latinx community identifies. Some members identify as Latinos, Latinas, or Hispanics, while others will prefer their nationality. Evaluators should become familiar with the communities they are serving and tailor instruments accordingly.
3. Location – Where the evaluation is conducted matters. Evaluators should situate data collection within the Latinx community being served and within spaces that community members feel most comfortable.
4. Self Reflection – Any sound evaluation practice requires the evaluator carefully consider her/his own motives, experiences, perspectives, expectations, and readiness to engage in the work throughout the process. Evaluation concerns the assessment of value which can often be judged differently depending on perspective.

Rad Resources:

The CDC’s Healthy Communities Program developed Building Our Understanding: Culture Insights Communicating with Hispanic/Latinos, a resource that includes information on Latinx culture and strategies for communicating with Latinx communities.

LA RED is a space for evaluators working collaboratively with/for Latina/o communities regardless of their personal racial-ethnic background. To join the discourse, please email us at lared.tig@gmail.com.

The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Latina/o Responsive Evaluation Discourse TIG Week. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from LA RED Topical Interest Group members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

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Kristin Fields

My name is Kristin Fields and I am the editor for AEA’s monthly e-newsletter. I joined the AEA staff about a year ago, and it has been such a pleasure to learn about our many members’ experiences in the field of evaluation.

Our e-newsletter is a chance to share the latest and greatest AEA news, events and educational opportunities with you. It’s also a great place to learn about your fellow members, whether it’s through columns like “The Face of AEA,” which spotlights member experiences, or sharing updates from our many AEA Topical Interest Groups. By getting to know your fellow AEA members, you may find you share a common experience, and down the road they can be a resource to help you solve a challenge. Learning from others is a powerful tool, and with that in mind, I’d like to share a few tips for interviewing. Not a writer? Not a problem. With Evaluation 2018 right around the corner, these tips can also be applied to the many networking opportunities you’ll have between sessions.

Hot Tip: Come prepared with a list of questions.

There’s nothing worse than an unprepared interviewer. When asking someone to take time out of their day for you, make sure you have a list of questions handy. Whenever possible, share questions in advance to ensure a productive conversation. While networking doesn’t necessitate the same procedure, it never hurts to mentally prepare a few basic questions (i.e. “How long have you been in the field? What got you started? What are some of the challenges/successes you’ve faced recently?”)

Hot Tip: Pay attention.

This seems obvious – however, there are so many distractions that can ruin a good conversation. When interviewing someone for a story, it’s important to ask if you can record the conversation. This lets you avoid typing notes as they speak, so you’re fully present and the click-clacks of your keyboard don’t detract from the conversation. While you don’t need to record conversations while networking, similar rules apply: put your device down, maintain eye contact and focus on what the person is saying so the conversation flows naturally.

Hot Tip: Follow up is key!

Once the interview is published, be sure to follow-up with the interviewee and thank them for their time. If applicable, share a link to the article online and encourage them to share it with others, too. In networking situations, don’t forget to get the person’s contact information, and follow-up with a quick note to thank them for their time. This can lead to future conversations and greater connections.

Whether you’re interviewing someone for a blog or making a connection in person, I hope these tips lead to productive conversations and future relationship building.

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.

#Eval18 · Evaluation 2018 · Interview · writing

Hello, my name is Tania Jarosewich, owner of Censeo Group, a northeast Ohio program evaluation firm that supports educational agencies and nonprofit organizations in evaluating their programmatic efforts. We northeast Ohio evaluators are excited to welcome you to Cleveland for Evaluation 2018.

Check out the Rad Resources below for a list of Cleveland-focused Twitter feeds. Why Twitter? Well, it’s an easy and quick way to learn about upcoming events and a good place to learn about new evaluation results and research findings.

Max Pixel Creative Commons Zero – CC0.

It’s easy to post a link and quickly share information with followers, but is Twitter an effective way to share work and build knowledge in the evaluation community? Research about the impact of tweeting on article or report downloads and citations has been equivocal. One study found a correlation between Twitter activity and higher citation rates in the area of ecological research. However, other studies have not found differences in the number of citations based on whether or not the author is on Twitter. Although there might not be a clear correlation between Twitter and citations, there is a benefit of using Twitter to disseminate evaluation or research findings. Twitter users who have a large following and compelling or interesting findings, have a greater chance of sharing findings with an audience wider than colleagues who would read a scientific journal, for example increasing visibility on Google searches. Tweeting about a project or finding, a relatively quick task, could amplify the message and communicate with a wide and varied audience.

Rad Resources: Add these Twitter handles to your feed to get a sense of what is happening in Cleveland and find places to visit during the conference.

Destination Cleveland @TheCLE

#HappyinCLE @happyincle

Cleveland Magazine @ClevelandMag

Cleveland Foundation @CleveFoundation

Downtown Cleveland @DowntownCLE

Cleveland Scene @ClevelandScene

West Side Market @WestSideMarket

Cleveland Metroparks @clevemetroparks

Rad Resource: Jayne Corso, the voice behind the @aeaweb Twitter page has written a number of AEA 365 posts about evaluators who tweet

Hot Tip: use the #Eval18 hashtag to tweet about or follow tweets about the AEA 2018 conference.

We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org.

Evaluation 2018 · lawg · twitter

Hello, and welcome to Cleveland!  I’m Douglas Clay, a longtime Cleveland resident and evaluator with Candor Consulting.  I focus on data analysis and assessment training mostly with K-12 schools.  I’ve been in Cleveland long enough to remember when the Browns were a winning team, when the shopping centers were steel mills, and trendy Tremont was the plain old Southside.  As the city is on an upswing, enjoy your stay and check out some of the revitalized sections of my town during the conference.

After you return to work you might like to investigate the following resource I discovered years ago while working with the Cleveland Public Schools.  I was tasked with preparing student testing results for school administrators and teacher leaders for a weekend planning retreat.  I was called down to the superintendent’s office on a Tuesday afternoon and given a box of state testing reports. I was responsible for turning these stacks of little numbers into usable information for educators in three days.  What I learned that afternoon was that nothing focuses the mind like terror.  Luckily, I was able to draw upon the genius of Edward Tufte and his classic book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Rad Resource:

Tufte outlines the theory and practice of designing data graphics.  The book gives detailed analysis in how to display data with precision, accuracy, high data-ink ratio, and aesthetics.  There are over 250 illustrations showing right (and wrong) ways to display lots of numbers in a small space for maximum understanding.  His theories of graphical excellence are extended in subsequent books on the subject, all worth your time if you have a need to make sense of complex data sets and engage stakeholders in meaningful discussions.  The quickest way to jump into graphical excellence is Tufte’s one day course. He tours the country presenting to groups of academics, journalists, financial analysts, and policymakers.  The course includes all his books and is well worth your time.  As I explained to a colleague who questioned my investment of time into creating graphs for schools by asking, “What, do you have to draw them a picture?” I responded, “Yes, yes, I do.” Tufte shows how to make that picture the most effective one for each type of data.

The following graphics are from work I’ve done recently and I hope they illustrate Tufte’s principles.  The first displays 256 separate data points to show test scores over time.  It allows a school to see the overall direction as well as how their progress deviates from the average.  What they viewed as plateauing over two years after years of increasing scores is contrasted with neighboring, similar, schools falling off a cliff.

This graphic displays a high school’s recent graduates’ college enrollment.  The National Clearinghouse dataset follows college graduates for years as they enroll and complete college degrees.  It allows for measurement of persistence and transfers between schools.  Tufte will teach you why this graph is more effective as a donut rather than a pie chart, and also allows decision makers to “see” the data without poring over charts of numbers.

We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org.

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Scott Vollmer

Hi, I’m Scott Vollmer, VP of STEM Learning at Great Lakes Science Center (GLSC) in Cleveland, Ohio.  I am passionate about my work and find that evaluation data is especially useful when trying to express my passion objectively.

Since July 2017, we have been using COVES (the Collaboration for Ongoing Visitor Experience Studies) to collect and analyze audience-level data to enhance the guest experience. We have collected 858 surveys through the first year. One of the measurements included in COVES’ five-minute voluntary exit survey is the widely-used loyalty indicator known as Net Promoter Score® (NPS). Further, COVES collects data based on motivation, visitation trends, and guest demographics.

The data-parsing tools available through COVES are extensive and we stick to our five-year Strategic Plan while interpreting our results. Goals three and five of our Strategic Plan focus on investing in the guest experience of our target audience, and encourage return/frequent visits.

Sticking to the Strategic Plan ensures that we maximize our Return On Investment (ROI) when making improvements.  The clearest example of this so far can be seen when looking at the NPS attached to our target demographic experience. Our core audience is families with children between the ages of two and twelve. When we look at only that demographic, our NPS is in the low 70s. This is exactly where we want to be, overall. When looking at adults without children, our NPS ranges from an abysmal 16 and only makes it as high as 57.5. This proves that we will see a greater ROI when focusing on our core audience. With COVES, we also have the luxury of diving deeper into exhibit-specific experiences. We have learned that our time and money is best spent on guest/staff interactions (exhibit interpretation, big shows, cart activities, etc.). Finally, we are able to track ROI results from our multi-day, Value-Added Programs. These Programs require doubling engagement staff and significant investments in immersive environments. Once these events are complete, we are able to see if there was improvement in the guest experience, allowing us to choose whether or not to make that investment again in the future.

Hot Tip:

COVES is also a great tool for reporting out to our Board of Directors.  We have created custom online dashboards using COVES data that are presented alongside more traditional Profit and Loss, Daily Gate Attendance, and Revenue reports. Rather than forcing arbitrary engagement goals, we use national aggregate COVES data to set benchmarks that our Board can easily understand. The ability to segment national data from similar medium-sized institutions allows us to have an apples-to-apples comparison.

The Great Lakes Science Center plans to continue using COVES to drive many of our decisions regarding exhibits, live interactions, events, traffic flow, and overall guest experience. We are certain that we can continue to build on past successes and spot negative trends before it is too late to make a difference.

We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org.

lawg · Visitor Studies

Greetings! I’m Seema Mahato, board member (student representative) for The Ohio Program Evaluator’s Group (OPEG) and a member of the Local Arrangements Working Group for Evaluation 2018.

‘Evaluation without Borders’, a pro-bono evaluation consulting program was piloted by Washington Evaluators at the 2017 AEA conference. As a participant of this event during AEA 2017, as a pro-bono consultant, I realized the tremendous value this event holds in terms of materializing AEA’s end goals “Growth in the effective use of evaluation as a means for enhancement of the public good (with results optimizing use of available resources)”. This volunteer consulting event provides a platform for evaluation professionals to share their knowledge and expertise with professionals from community-based organizations (non-profits), and thus advances AEA’s commitment towards greater public good. Other professional organizations such as Bankers without Borders, Engineers without Borders USA, and Statistics without Borders live the similar philosophy of sharing technical expertise for the enhancement of public good.

Given the current times of facts versus alternative facts tussle, evaluators and evaluation could play an important role in creating the awareness necessary to distinguish facts from alternative facts as we deliberate Speaking Truth to Power in Cleveland this year. Continuing the Washington Evaluator’s initiative from AEA 2017, OPEG would like to invite evaluators and non-profit professionals to participate in the second iteration of Evaluation without Borders in AEA 2018. This pro-bono consulting event provides an opportunity for conference attendees to reflect on this year’s conference theme and understand how evaluation could facilitate and contribute towards Speaking Truth to Power.

Rad Resources:

Giving back to the community. We would like to invite you to participate in Evaluation without Borders and have created a sign-up form, also available on the OPEG website, to facilitate participation in this event. Please share some details about your evaluation experience and areas of expertise that you would like to volunteer with as a pro-bono consultant. The pro-bono consulting sessions are scheduled for Monday, October 29^th, Tuesday October 30^th and Wednesday October 31^st.  On Wednesday, October 31^st the event ends at 2pm so that we can attend the opening plenary.

[For additional information, please contact Seema Mahato at sm618312@ohio.edu]

We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org.

Evaluation 2018 · evaluation without borders · lawg

I’m Cindi Szymanski, Senior Manager of Brand Marketing & Communications for the largest performing arts center in the country outside of New York. On behalf of everyone at Playhouse Square, please allow me to welcome you to our great city!

Playhouse Square has a total of 11 performance spaces and welcomes more than a million guests each year. We present touring Broadway, concerts, comedy, dance and family shows. Playhouse Square is home to six resident companies: Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Play House, Cleveland State University Department of Theatre and Dance, DANCECleveland, Great Lakes Theater and Tri-C JazzFest.

Five of our theaters were built in the early 1920s: the Allen, Connor Palace, Hanna, KeyBank State and Ohio. They are beautifully restored and if you like, you are welcome to tour them on Saturday, November 3. Tours are free and depart every 15 minutes 10-11:30 a.m. from the KeyBank State Theatre lobby (1519 Euclid Avenue). Wear comfortable walking shoes; the tours last 90 minutes.

Lessons Learned:

Evaluators might be interested to the answers to some of the following questions:

1. How are the Broadway musicals selected for Cleveland? Executive producer, Gina Vernaci, curates the KeyBank Broadway Series. As a Tony voter, she sees all of the productions in New York and then negotiates with producers to create a well-rounded season for Cleveland audiences.
2. Who are the audiences and where do they come from? Approximately 10% of the Playhouse Square ticket buyers come from outside a 50-mile radius of Cleveland. This is determined through data collected during the purchase process, where we collect name, address, phone and email. As for other demographics (age, income, gender, etc.), we occasionally distribute surveys but that information is always optional to provide.
3. How do ticket prices in Cleveland compare to New York/Broadway? There is a lot of variation in NY ticket pricing, but ticket prices are lower in Cleveland.

Hot Tip:

• Photo Op: In the heart of our neighborhood is a great photo opportunity with the GE Chandelier, the world’s largest outdoor chandelier, suspended right over Euclid Avenue and bedazzled with 4200 crystals. You’ll find a number of bars and restaurants within walking distance and there’s something to fit every taste – Italian, Mexican, Korean, German and more.

Rad Resource:

• Discounted Tickets for performances: While you’re in Cleveland, the national tour of Les Miserables will be in town and our resident company Great Lakes Theater will present performances of Mamma Mia! and Pride and Prejudice. Special pricing is available for AEA conference attendees. Visit this link to learn more and purchase tickets.

Enjoy your visit to Cleveland!

We’re looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org.

lawg