The Latest

Evaluating Systems and Social Change: New Developments and A Ground-breaking Program by SFU

One of my roles as ‘curator’ of the Tamarack Institute’s Evaluating Community Impact work is to track and share ideas and methodologies that community changemakers might find useful in their work.  

Over the next six months, I will focus on evaluating systems change and social change. Innovators  all over the world are focused on reforming or transforming systems, whether they be related to energy, child protection, ecological education, economic, social systems, or (more likely) a mix of all them.

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Weaving Together Accountability and Learning in Complex Situations

Michael Quinn Patton, evaluation expert, has argued that even the best intentioned, well-resourced evaluation processes can become, “the enemy of social innovation” if change-makers, evaluators and funders employ a traditional – rather than developmental – approach to assessment.  

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Principles-Focused Evaluation: Newest Approach for Evaluating Complex Change Efforts

One of the toughest challenges for social innovators and evaluators is to describe the “it” they are trying to evaluate. While they typically have a general idea of the outcome they would like to see (e.g., an end to homelessness, addressing mental health issues, a feeling of inclusion), they often struggle to lay out the pathway(s) to get there. This makes it difficult for both parties to land on questions, indicators and/or methods around which to build an evaluation design. 

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Embracing the Messy, Unpredictable Journey

Looking out the window at the snow-covered ground, it feels as though ages have passed since my time at the Community Change Institute in Vancouver. Although, the seasons have quickly changed and new day to day operational priorities have skipped to the head of the line, there are many messages that remain in my mind about the content shared that week.

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YOUR IMPACT IN 30 SECONDS!

In September the Community Sector Council NL challenged its partners to present '30-Second Pop-Ups!' throughout its networking event. Simps! I thought then 10 minutes later I realized that this task would require a great deal of thought. I hardly ever get asked the impact question. Most funders don’t even ask for impact/outcomes reporting!  The majority are still at outputs reporting. How many session were held? How many clients served? The demographic of those served? And maybe just maybe – What did the individuals think about it all?

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5 Shared Measurement Challenges for Collective Impact Initiatives

My just-released paper, Shared Measurement: The Why is Clear, the How Continues to Develop acknowledges the importance of shared measurement as one of the five conditions of Collective Impact.  As noted by Kania and Kramer, “Collecting data and measuring results consistently on a short list of indicators at the community level and across all participating organisations not only ensures that all efforts remain aligned, it also enables the participants to hold each other accountable and learn from each other’s successes and failures.” 

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