Using Evaluation as a Development Tool

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Using Evaluationas aDevelopment Tool

• Anthony J. Alberta, Ph.D.
• President
• Sonoran Research Group
• Phoenix, Arizona

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Evaluation
1. Diverts resources from our real work.
2. Increases staff workload.
3. Tells us things we dont want to know,
dont care about, or nothing at all.
4. Jeopardizes our funding streams.
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Evaluation diverts resources from our real work.
Increase available resources using effective
evaluation activities to demonstrate the value of
your services.
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Evaluation increases staff workload.
Integrate evaluation activities into operating
processes.
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Evaluation tells us things we dont want to know,
or dont care about, or nothing at all.
Or all of these things.
What would you like to know?
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Evaluation jeopardizes our funding streams.
No one ever lost funding because
1. They demonstrated that their organization
achieved its goals in a cost effective manner.
2. They engaged in a formal effort to improve
the services provided by their organization.
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Evaluation
A systematic process through which we gather
information to either answer or form questions.
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Outcome Evaluation
What
Did
Quantitative Evaluation
We
Do?
Summative Evaluation
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How
Process Evaluation
Did
Qualitative Evaluation
We
Do
FormativeEvaluation
It?
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Your Research Agenda
You already have a research agenda
You provide a service to fill a need in your
community, and
You believe this service works.
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Your Research Agenda
1. We identified hunger as a problem in our
community
2. We hypothesized that lack of access to food
caused that hunger.
3. We provided food through the Tastes Good Food
Bank to alleviate the hunger.
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Your Research Agenda
In other words, you have developed a research
question, used that question to form a
hypothesis, and are engaged in testing that
hypothesis.
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Your Research Agenda
We can even state this hypothesis in testable
form as a null hypothesis
Providing food to people through the Tastes Good
Food Bank will not reduce hunger in our
community.
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Your Research Agenda
Regardless of how we express the question or
approach the delivery of the service, we are
still distributing food.
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Your Research Agenda
Additionally, you are already collecting some
sort of data.
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So, whats the point?
Do something with the information you already
have!
With a little bit of help, or a little bit of
thought, you can use this information to
demonstrate the value of your service to
potential or existing supporters.
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So, whats the point?
Last year, the Tastes Good Food Bank provided 400
food boxes to members of our community.
Please help us continue to provide this necessary
service.
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So, whats the point?
Last year, the Tastes Good Food Bank provided 400
food boxes to members of our community.
- 200 of these food boxes went to households that
included children under 5 years of age.
- 30 of the food boxes went to households that
would otherwise not have eaten that day.
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So, whats the point?
- 20 of these food boxes went to households that
have not previously sought assistance.
Please help the Tastes Good Food Bank meet this
growing need in our community.
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Heres the point
The Tastes Good Food Bank enhanced their appeal
by asking clients to answer three questions when
they requested assistance

• How many people are in your household?
• Have you been here before?
• What would you eat tonight if we had not provided
  a food box?

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Heres the point
They can even say that there is evidence that the
Good Taste Food Bank reduces hunger in the
community it serves they have tested their
hypothesis.
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Heres the point
Additionally, based on the finding that half of
the food boxes went to households that included
at least one child under five, food bank staff
worked out an arrangement with a local used book
store and began including a childrens book in
each box.
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Build on what you currently do.
Most food banks do not wait until they can
provide nutritionally complete food boxes before
they provide food.
Most ballet companies dont wait until they can
recruit famous Russian prima donnas before they
produce Swan Lake.
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Build on what you currently do.
But most non-profit organizations think they need
to wait until they can implement a Solomon
4-group experimental design, complete with ANOVA
statistical techniques, before they start their
evaluation activities.
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Build on what you currently do.
Start simply, build your organizations capacity
to conduct evaluation.
Seek partners, seek help.
Build your data sets. (Use your data
longitudinally)
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Use your findings externally to demonstrate the
value of your organizations work to supporters
and potential supporters.
Use your findings internally to enhance the
quality of the services you deliver.
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