Empowering Nonprofits Through Data
Empowering Nonprofits Through Data
These case studies provide a range of examples from survey reports to program impact summary reports. Our level of involvement with each client ranges from coaching to being a hands-on team member depending on the level of need. We work collaboratively with clients to determine how best to effectively disseminate findings, leveraging data visualization in reports to clearly communicate measurable results.
Critical Conversations Program
The Critical Conversations program gives a voice to youth to promote positive police-community relations and strengthen communities. It brings law enforcement officers into classrooms for facilitated discussions with youth on topics such as the role of police, police misconduct, and media influence. Detroit PAL has implemented this program in area schools to create a path toward community healing in response to violent encounters with law enforcement. This summary report was created collaboratively, leveraging in-house graphic design resources and our technical assistance and support.
Project Lemonade inspires self-esteem to help youth in foster care thrive. Their L+EARN Internship program supports youth experiencing foster care to prepare for work and adulthood by providing them with job experience, essential skill development, and community. We created a plan to assess impact in three program areas: career readiness, personal development, and social connectedness. The evaluation results demonstrated significant gains in these areas and revealed a path toward developing more customized programming to meet the needs of the youth they serve.
The International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) is the first and largest global organization focusing specifically on multiple myeloma. We collaborated with the IMF to create a realistic and meaningful program evaluation plan for their Patient and Care Partner programs. The participant survey we developed was administered to everyone who attended a workshop, seminar, or support group in 2023. Based on the survey results, the IMF revised the workshop format for 2024 to ensure their programs address the knowledge and support needs of the myeloma community.
Northwest Stepping Stones is a resident services program offered in 14 of NW Real Estate Capital Corporation’s housing communities. We partnered with them to develop a realistic and meaningful program evaluation process. The result is they now have a concrete way to measure and communicate the positive impact their programs have as well as data to understand where program improvements are needed. This report highlights key findings that demonstrate impact as well as provide insights to inform strategies to employ so they can continue to make a difference in the communities they serve.
Portland, Oregon’s regional government launched a three-year pilot to invest in private-sector innovation in waste management while fostering economic equity. This report, which includes both an Impact Summary and a detailed Pilot Evaluation Report, assesses the cumulative impacts of these public investments and evaluates how well the program met its goals. Metro staff wrote the report, with technical assistance and data visualization by Evaluation into Action.
Meyer awarded grants to nine programs across rural Oregon to help low-income residents of manufactured homes with critical repairs and other improvements. Meyer Memorial Trust staff and nine grantees participated in developing a two-year program evaluation process to measure implementation and impact across organizations. We aggregated and organized data from all grantees and used data visualization to highlight key implementation details and impacts on residents.
Check out my book Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple: Get your Data. Show your Impact. Improve your Programs.
The book includes access to a companion website filled with examples.
I highly recommend working with Chari on your evaluation project. She was an invaluable leader and teammate in wrangling a complex program evaluation into manageable pieces that all came together beautifully. We had a very challenging timeline for a full program evaluation, and Chari ably steered the ship to get it done, and she made it fun. I’m so proud of what we created together. Further, Chari is an excellent teacher and happy to share her knowledge and insights, and by doing so she built our team’s evaluation acumen beyond just this project. We will carry what we learned from working with Chari into future projects and programs.
Suzanne Piluso, Investment and Innovation Program Manager, Metro
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