Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity
These three guides are easy-to-use resources that help evaluators integrate racial equity principles into their daily work. Each guide includes meaningful definitions, innovative models, real-life case studies, and reflective learning exercises.
Positive Youth Development Measurement Toolkit
This toolkit provides implementers of youth programming a variety of references, resources, and tools on how to use a positive youth development (PYD) approach for evaluating youth-focused programming. A PYD approach to evaluation will measure whether youth are positively engaged in and benefiting from investments that ultimately empower them to develop in healthy and positive ways so that they can contribute to the development of their communities.
What is Theory of Change?
Theory of Change is essentially a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused in particular on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. This website includes everything you need to know in order to understand and create a Theory of Change.
Data Playbook
For purpose-driven organizations, data means more than just numbers and graphs–it is about understanding what more you can do to change lives and strengthen communities. The Data Playbook, from Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, provides the building blocks you need to put data to work for your mission through a measured approach to understanding and telling stories of impact.
Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact—and What to Do Instead
Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact—and What to Do Instead, a Stanford Social Innovation Review article, simplified the task of improving data collection and analysis with a three-question test. The author emphasized that if your organization cannot answer yes to at least one of the following questions, then your organization probably should not be collecting data. 1) Can and will the (cost-effectively collected) data help manage the day-to-day operations or design decisions for your program? 2) Are the data useful for accountability, to verify that the organization is doing what it said it would do? 3) Will your organization commit to using the data and make investments in organizational structures necessary to do so?