The Improve Group is always looking for creative ways to measure and evaluate program outcomes and their long-term impacts. Ripple effect mapping brings something new to the table by framing analysis around the initial program outcomes and how they connect to and interact with the larger service area, community, etc. It is a participatory strategy for measuring program outcomes, particularly those requiring collaboration among stakeholders or sectors.
March 20, 2013 - 3:37pm
March 18, 2013 - 7:35pm
Evaluation for Improvement: A Seven-Step Empowerment Evaluation Approach provides an in-depth analysis and practical application of Empowerment Evaluation. Empowerment Evaluation (EE) is gaining a lot of attention in the evaluation community. The overarching goal of this approach is to empower a program’s stakeholders with the capacity to effectively plan, implement and evaluate their own programs.
March 18, 2013 - 1:53pm
The following blog, Before Spending on a Client Tracking Database, Consider Your Goals, first appeared on MAP for Nonprofits MapTechWorks on March 15, 2013.
February 20, 2013 - 6:53pm
Over the last year, we have had a chance to work with two foundations in the Twin Cities: a family and a community-based foundation. We learned a few lessons from this work about evaluation within a philanthropic context:
January 30, 2013 - 9:14pm
Without a clear understanding of evaluation results, organizations are unable to use findings to learn and strengthen their work. That means that the reports and presentations we develop are a tremendously important aspect of our work at the Improve Group. Reporting is often the culmination of months, and sometimes years, of inquiry and hard work.
January 30, 2013 - 9:07pm
The Improve Group is always excited to learn about creative data collection and analysis techniques. Because we work with people from all walks of life, from all over the globe, we want to be inclusive and respectful throughout our practice. We have discovered that photos can be a useful tool in learning about how programs affect their participants’, and have had great success incorporating pictures into our work.
December 19, 2012 - 5:45pm
Recently, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal recognized twelve companies with the Jefferson Award for Public Service. The selected businesses found similar benefits from contributing to their communities: it allowed them to use their own talents to make a difference, address issues important to the company, and helped their employees feel good.
October 8, 2012 - 4:20pm
The following blog on Small Business by Leah Goldstein Moses was first published on the American Evaluation Association AEA 365 blog this week: