Research and evaluation

How is the theory of change created? A Theory of Change (also known as the Pathway of Change) is a strategy that allows us to identify and explain all of the necessary steps and conditions required to create long-term changes in our community. The Theory of Change is a strategy that […]

What is community-centered evidence-based practice (EBP)? This section explores a community-centered EBP (evidence based practice) approach that we adapted along with many test-tasters, including practitioners, community members and other researchers/evaluators. This EBP approach is meant to align with the work of community-based, culturally-specific organizations that work alongside community members. We hope […]

Background on the building evidence toolkit In this section of our toolkit, we invite you to explore and learn about community-centered evidence. This is the foundation for how we think about evidence and documenting evidence.  In other words, this section includes the special ingredients for our meals. In our case, our […]

Indigenous evaluation The value of documenting your program’s recipe through program evaluation is that you can adjust your ingredients or modify your steps for different community taste-testers. In this toolkit we described the utility of logic models for program evaluation and exploring what ingredients go into making your services or initiative. […]

Empowerment evaluation Empowerment evaluation supports program improvement by giving organizations and community members the tools to take ownership of the evaluation process. While there are similarities with participatory evaluation, empowerment evaluation has more emphasis on giving program staff, volunteers, and others involved in delivering a program or initiative (the chefs of […]

Developing questions Consider inviting community members to contribute to the model development. Think about a logic model as a “living” document, flexible, open to different perspectives, and changing as the program grows and changes too. Logic model discussions can help spur evaluation questions about the process, activities, or outcomes of programs. […]

Participatory evaluation What would happen if you invited the people at the table into the kitchen? What if community members understood the process and resources available for a program before evaluating the results? Including participatory research methods in your evaluation gives power back to survivors and youth witnesses of violence and […]

Choosing an external evaluator Oftentimes we find ourselves with the possibility of having to hire a person or team of evaluators outside of the organization. This situation opens the door to new experiences and it would be helpful to have someone who already has experience working in your community. To help […]

Evaluation plan This section will help you develop an evaluation plan around the culturally specific elements of your work. In order to build the best plan possible, please familiarize yourself with the background content that went into developing this section. Here is a step by step process for this section. First, […]

Culturally specific principles As noted in the “What is Principle-Based Evaluation?” having cultural specific principles can help guide an organization in measuring principle driven outcomes.   When thinking about the work that they do, our workgroup organizations noticed that they really had not had the opportunity to write down the ingredients […]