Examples of Evaluation Projects

The YMCA of the USA, a federation that makes up one of the nation’s largest non-profit organizations, needed to develop the capacity to measure social impact.  We designed and implemented a multi-year program to train over 600 leaders from 25 cities in evaluation to enhance the organization’s collective ability to measure and communicate the social impact of their programs. The project resulted in a widespread reconstruction of organizational objectives and evaluation procedures.

The Lilly Endowment, Inc., a family foundation based in Indianapolis and funding science and education initiatives throughout the Midwest, asked us to train grantees in evaluation methodology and help them design strategies for program and evaluation sustainability.

The Surrey Foundation exists to strengthen the foundations of the communities of Surrey.  Our consultation was retained to examine, reform, and train staff in the evaluation methods.  We renovated the evaluation for signature programs of the foundation, resulting in an increase ability to demonstrate impact, improve program effectiveness, and respond adequately to the reporting requirements of the Province. 

The YMCA Higher Education Service Project, a national effort supported by the Lumina Foundation to help under-served youth achieve access and success in higher education, asked us to evaluate program effectiveness.  Through a combination of surveys and in-depth interviews, we provided recommendations to restructure programs and secure sustainability of funding.  

The Community-School Partnership of Surrey, a project designed to involve the whole community in the educational of children in the largest school district in the Province of British Columbia, requested us to help them design and implement evaluation for program outcomes.  We not only provided them with renovated instruments for data gathering, but trained their program staff in evaluation strategy.

Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon was seeking regional accreditation.  We designed the evaluation strategy and developed a sustainable evaluation model for program design and effectiveness for educational outcomes.  The result was the achievement of accreditation with commendation from Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities for exemplary evaluation policies and procedures.

The Calgary YMCA is one of Alberta’s oldest and most illustrative charities.  They recently grew aware that their evaluation practices were failing to capture quality data about program effectiveness.  We facilitated an audit of their survey instruments and trained a task force from the organization to reform their evaluation philosophy and strategy, resulting in the Calgary association now being highlighted as a leader in evaluation throughout the YMCAs across Canada.

The Sharing Impact project in Calgary includes Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Calgary, Calgary YMCA, and the Bridge Foundation.  These three agencies are leading the way in investing in the development of youth during the middle years (ages 10-15).  They asked us to lead a collective impact project that will soon be joined by a second round of agencies, resulting in the development of shared ideas of intended impact and shared instruments for gathering data and communicating findings.

The Deep Dive project was inaugurated by Josiah Venture, a youth development federation with independent agencies in 12 countries in Central and Eastern Europe.  They recognized that they struggled to see the impact of their work throughout the younger populations of these regions and asked us to design, develop, train, and lead a group of six multi-national teams to perform qualitative evaluation at scale in six countries.  This project resulted in program renovations and innovations throughout the region.

The NPS Labour Market Partnership Project is funded by the Canadian federal government and administered through the Vancouver Foundation in British Columbia.  The mission of the project is to develop the workforce of the future for the non-profit sector, with particular emphasis on under-represented populations.  We are designing and implementing a suite of evaluation resources to capture the impact of the project throughout the province of British Columbia.

Project Impact PDX is a year-long course, taken by over 30 nonprofit agencies in the Greater Portland area to develop their capacity to measure impact.  We designed and implemented this first-of-kind effort to build capacity within a sector by building collaborative capacity for doing impact evaluation.