Evaluation
We build the capacity of people to prove and improve their impact through evaluation.
Our innovative approach to evaluation provides teams with the tools they need to evaluate and communicate their impact through both qualitative and quantitative data. We help people see the difference they are making, and not just how hard they are trying. The models and methods we have created are grounded in social science but have been developed to yield surprisingly fresh and inspiring data. This is not your typical evaluation process.
Project Impact
6-8-month, cohort-based course in evaluation design, implementation, and innovation
Project Impact is our signature evaluation project designed to build the capacity of social sector leaders to design and implement meaningful, useful, and credible evaluations of their impact. It brings together teams of leaders from a variety of organizations to learn with and from each other over the course of 6-8 months. More than 400 organizations have participated in Project Impact since it began in 2014.
Click here to learn more about Project Impact and how to join.
Getting to What Matters Presentation
2-3 hour workshop
All of us who work with people need a way both to prove and to improve our impact in the lives of those we serve. We need data to demonstrate what we are doing is making a difference. We also need data to show us how to get better. We need better ways to evaluate what really matters.
Too often, however, evaluation fails to give us a crisp and clear picture of impact. It is frequently burdensome, perfunctory, and unwieldy – a chore to perform, not an exciting and incisive discovery of the keys to causing human impact. We tend to measure the wrong things in the wrong ways, making our evaluation inert and tiresome. How do we make our valuation better?
How do we
design simple, elegant and meaningful evaluation?
focus on impact and not just output?
draw a “line of sight” between our people management practices and our ability to fulfill our mandate?
develop leadership capacity through evaluation?
mobilize leaders and stakeholders to make data-driven decisions?
demonstrate the value and impact of our programs to potential funders.
Based on the work of over a decade of capacity-building with hundreds of programs and agencies across North America, this workshop will provide innovative thinking and proven technique to help us prove and improve our impact.
For more information, follow this link.
Deep Dive
multiple-month course of inquiry and organizational discovery
The Deep Dive Project is an initiative to equip organizations to develop qualitative research capacity and design program innovations as a result of qualitative findings.
Qualitative research is about seeing better. When a group of leaders gains the ability to see more deeply, more accurately, more meaningfully into cultural dynamics, quality of impact, and the nuances of need among those served, a cascade of potential and innovation is released.
The aim of the deep dive is to help leaders increase their effectiveness by redesigning signature programs and creating new and innovative interventions based on the insight of qualitative inquiry. This is done by training and guiding leaders to complete a qualitative inquiry into an area of concern for organizational impact.
To see an example of a Deep Dive project, follow this link.
Impact Evaluations
special projects
We provide evaluation services for select organizations and initiatives, including the European Leadership Forum, Nonprofit Sector Labour Market Partnership in British Columbia, Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, Immigrant Employment Council, Equity and Inclusion Executive Director Cohort of the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, among others.