Hi, I’m Quisha Brown, co-founder of Humanistic Care, LLC, an organization offering culturally responsive solutions to tough evaluation challenges. A recent AEA365 blog post titled “Applying Rubrics in Evaluation” by Gerard Atkinson caught my attention with its discussion on the benefits of using rubrics in evaluation. The Progressive Outcomes Scale Logic Model (POSLM) framework I developed in 2020 is one such evaluation model which uses a stage model rubric approach to measure outcomes towards social impact progressively using a common set of indicators. During my 20+ years working with nonprofits serving marginalized communities and 3 years helping them to create POSLMs, I’ve compiled over 200+ common person-centered equity indicators which derived from direct feedback shared with me by people most impacted by inequitable practices.

My name is Liane Ventura and I serve as a faculty Research Associate with the Center for Applied Research and Evaluation (CARE) in Women’s Health at East Tennessee State University (ETSU). I am an applied Public Health researcher who is interested in mixed methodology and community-engaged approaches.

Howdy AEA 365, it’s Will Fisher and Jenny Seelig, Research Scientists with NORC at the University of Chicago. NORC is devoted to objective and dynamic social science research.

As originally planned, our study,Engaging Youth for Positive Change (EYPC): Promoting Community Health Through Civic Education, was a randomized controlled trial carefully designed to evaluate the impact the EYPC’s[i] civics curriculum has on student health and community well-being in rural Illinois. It was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2019 and scheduled to take place from 2020 to 2023. By Spring 2020, we had recruited 18 schools and 18 teachers into control and treatment groups and expected to steadfastly proceed. However, no one could have predicted the circuitous path our research would take.

Hi, I’m Burt Perrin, and I’d like you think about bureaucracy – its strengths, weaknesses, and what this means for evaluation.

Bureaucracy is complex. It is essential to democracy – while at the same time presenting many challenges. Evaluation has the potential to aid bureaucracies in being more responsive and effective – but also with the potential to acerbate the situation.

Hi, my name is Elena Pinzon O’Quinn, and I am the National Learning and Evaluation Director at LIFT, an economic mobility nonprofit. Back in December 2021, I shared my tips for building a culture of data for decision making in nonprofits, which covered simple and efficient ways to share data. But getting data into stakeholders’ hands is just one piece of the puzzle in continuous improvement and learning. With efficient client data management systems and real-time dashboards, program teams often have near-constant access to data. At LIFT, we have had a strong track record of using data in strategic and long-term planning but struggled with how to use data on a more regular basis to understand program performance and integrate timely data-informed program improvements.