Hi everyone. My name is Alicia McCoy and I am the Head of Research and Evaluation at beyondblue, a national public health mental health organization in Australia. My perspective on what it means to share truth to those in power in the non-profit sector comes from a decade working as an internal evaluator and senior …
Hello! My name is Valerie Ehrlich and I serve as Secretary for RTP Evaluators in North Carolina, where we recently hosted Hazel Symonette, PhD, for our annual professional development workshop. That experience proved both timely and transformational in terms of helping me understand what equity-minded evaluation can look like in everyday practice. Dr. Symonette’s workshop …
Hi, I’m Sue Hoechstetter, lead developer and keeper of advocacy capacity assessment tools at Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy program. I want to share with you about a new project to investigate and use advocates’ experiences to help evaluators, advocates, and funders better assess nonprofits’ efforts to “speak their truths” to policy decision-makers. In these …
Hello! We are Jessica Robles, Nitya Venkateswaran, and Jay Feldman from RTI International’s Center for Evaluation and the Study of Educational Equity. Our team was excited to see that AEA was soliciting blog posts about the challenges of sharing truth through evaluation in the nonprofit sector, as it would give us an opportunity to reflect …
My name is Dr. Shanesha Brooks-Tatum, Executive Vice President of Creative Research Solutions. Based on my conversations and interactions with small and large foundations, one of the greatest (spoken and unspoken) fears that foundations may have regarding external evaluations are seemingly “bad,” “poor,” or inconclusive findings outcomes. Today, I will describe ways that evaluators and …
Greetings! We are Clare Nolan and Sonia Taddy and last year we co-founded Engage R+D to help social sector organizations harness the power of evaluation, strategy, and learning to advance their missions. As long-time evaluators dedicated to social change, we are keenly aware of the importance of enabling diverse stakeholders to share their truth and …
Hello fellow evaluators, I’m Kelly Hannum President of Aligned Impact and a consultant with the Luminaire Group. As someone who studied research methodology, it’s fascinating to watch as we individually and collectively struggle with what’s true and what matters in an age of “fake news” and “post-truth.” I’m disheartened to see mostly shallow attempts at …
NPF TIG Week: Finding Meaning in the “Post-truth’ Era by Kelly Hannum Read More »
Hi, I’m Katrina Bledsoe, a member of the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF), a research scientist at Education Development Center, and principal consultant of Katrina Bledsoe Consulting. Throughout this week, members of the EPTF highlighted ways evaluation can inform policy at the federal and state levels, and within the public sector. …
I’m Prentice Zinn. I work at GMA Foundations, a philanthropic services organization in Boston. I went to a funder/grantee dialogue hosted by Tech Networks of Boston and Essential Partners that discussed the tensions between nonprofits and funders about data and evaluation. Lessons Learned: Funders and their grantees are not having an honest conversation about evaluation. …
Hi, I’m Chari Smith with Evaluation into Action. I work with a range of nonprofits and foundations in the Northwest area. Evaluation is a learning opportunity. Nonprofits need help to set up their organizations so that they can integrate program evaluation into their daily activities. It is a critical piece to ensure they can do …
