Management and quality guru W. Edwards Deming said, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” Does that sound like one of your committee meetings? Lots of opinions? Do your committees glance at reports you spent hours preparing and then say things like, “And?” or “So?” or “Yeah, but . . .” Do your[…]
We are back after taking a hiatus in July to focus on wrapping up and ramping up several projects. We are excited to dig into this series of posts about data, strategy, and nonprofit governance. Over the past few months, several of our clients have faced challenges when it comes to engaging their Boards and[…]
Has your organization recently completed a strategic planning process and created a “plan” that is nothing more than a glorified (and long) laundry list? Do you create annual plans full of aspirational goals that never quite get fully operationalized or implemented because no one knows where to start? Did you get a list of feedback[…]
Many of us do work that is inherently and inarguably valuable. There is an intuitive and logical connection between the work we do and some larger, later good. Yet our actual, direct impact is hard to define or know. For years, these programs have been funded based on their face value, but many funders now[…]
This is the fourth and final post in a series on Evaluative Thinking (ET) in nonprofits. In the first post, I shared definitions of ET and contrasted it with evaluation itself. Next, I shared some tips and tools for encouraging and practicing ET. And last time, I shared some examples of what ET looks like[…]
Often, people in the nonprofit world hear the “e” word (whispers: evaluation) and they think of program evaluation, outcomes, and impact. However, evaluative thinking is a way of leading, planning, and making decisions that can be applied to all of an organization’s operations. Recall that the various definitions of evaluative thinking emphasize that it: Is[…]
In my last post, I offered some common definitions of evaluative thinking compared to evaluation and stressed how critical evaluative thinking is to meaningful and useful evaluation. In this post, I want to share some tips for encouraging and practicing evaluative thinking within your organizations. Setting the Stage In their article Defining and Teaching Evaluative[…]
Anytime we do things for the “wrong” reasons, there’s a good chance that experience will be less fulfilling, less meaningful, and less useful than if we’d done it for the “right” reasons. The same is true of evaluation. When we do it because someone tells us to (funder, donor, accreditor) and not because we want[…]
I’ve said it here many times. I hate waste! As a sector that’s starved for resources yet charged with addressing some of society’s most intractable problems, we can’t afford to waste any time, energy, knowledge, or money! We’ve all heard the saying “time is money.” In our sector, time is money, and money is the[…]
This is the fourth and final post in a series in which I implore nonprofits to do some critical reflecting and planning before you embark on any evaluation work or make changes to your data collection forms, tools, or processes. I think there are four key things organizations need to know when planning their evaluation[…]