How can you get grantees to provide better outcome data? Teach them!
That was the essentially the impetus for the Foundation’s Evaluation Institute launched this fall. The goal in establishing the institute was to train grantees how to collect, analyze and share data so that they can better measure their own performance, and we can understand the impact of our grantmaking.
We invited area health agencies to nominate managers who, by the end of the four-month program, will know what a good evaluation process looks like and how to implement change within their organizations.
So what have they learned so far?
This month
Anita Baker, our expert trainer who has designed similar evaluation training programs for the Hartford Foundation and the Bruner Foundation, talked to participants about how to create a survey that will yield useful data. It’s not as easy as you might think.
Baker said even she’s not overly fond of answering surveys even though she writes them for a living. Writing surveys is hard, she said. The key is creating questions and answer categories that make sense to those you want to respond.
It also doesn’t hurt to entice your respondents with candy, as Baker did when she asked our own participants to answer survey questions by voting with a pack of Starburst.
There are a variety of ways to collect and use data, said Baker, who encouraged participants to use data to make decisions, solve problems, as well as study attitudes and perceptions.
Over the next two months, participants will learn everything they need to know about designing evaluations, choosing the right evaluation tools and communicating results to stakeholders. They will also have the opportunity to receive coaching on actual evaluations created during the institute.
We’ll update you on lessons learned from the institute and whether our participants develop a sweet tooth.