Download or read book Evaluation in Small Development Non Profits written by Leanne M. Kelly and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on evaluation shows that low-use and non-use of evaluation is common, yet evaluation is hailed as beneficial and worthwhile. The worth of evaluation is tied to its utilisation, presenting a paradox if evaluation is both revered and underutilised. This book investigates this paradox in the under-researched context of small development non-profit organisations, which have specific resource constraints and ‘bottom up’ community development values that complicate their ability to do and use evaluation in line with top down directives. The book examines the utility, meaningfulness, and purpose of evaluation from small non-profit perspectives, and explores whether evaluation has value for these organisations. For development practice, it presents evaluative alternatives that reconceptualise evaluation as part of the active process of development rather than as an interval-based add-on. For evaluation theory, it highlights a historical preoccupation with improving evaluation without assessing its inherent worth, and considers alternative ways to enhance the value of evaluation for small non-profits.

Download or read book Level Best written by Marcia Festen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2006-10-25 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Level Best offers guidance that demystifies evaluation and takes into account the unique challenges and realities of grassroots nonprofit organizations. It provides a new framework for thinking about evaluation and tools for measuring and sharing results in ways that are practical, efficient, and meaningful.

Download or read book Nonprofits and Evaluation written by Joanne G. Carman and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 2008-10-13 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of New Directions for Evaluation explores evaluation within the context of nonprofit organizations. In recent years, many have observed that nonprofit organizations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their effectiveness and coument their program outcomes, as the current political and funding environment continues to stress the importance of accountability and measuring performance. Foundations, government agencies, and other funders are asking nonprofit organizations for more evaluation and performance measurement data. Yet, most nonprofit organizations continue to struggle with these demands, and many lack the capacity to implement evaluation and performance measurement in comprehensive or meaningful ways.

Download or read book Internal Evaluation in Non Profit Organisations written by Leanne M. Kelly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focused on the interpersonal aspects of internal evaluation in non-profit organisations, this book presents practice-based discussions centred on six key topics identified through the authors’ experience as evaluation practitioners. Internal Evaluation in Non-Profit Organisations: Practitioner Perspectives on Theory, Research, and Practice is not a step-by-step how-to guide; instead, each chapter unpacks an aspect of internal evaluation in non-profits that is paid insufficient heed in the existing literature. Written by and for internal evaluation practitioners, the book contains a plethora of practical strategies and critical analysis of thought-provoking topics that are of particular interest and importance to internal evaluators in non-profit settings. The authors understand the pressures facing practitioners and non-profit organisations and share their insights around improving evaluation’s ability to be efficient, embedded, useful, and meaningful. This book will be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students focusing on non-profit management and will hold specific value for internal evaluators who want to harness their unique and influential position to help organisations achieve their goals. Further, this book is ideal for individuals wanting to think critically about evaluation and improve evaluation utilisation by developing their professional capability, building teamwork skills, using informal everyday data, incorporating theory, and developing fruitful relationships with external evaluators.

Download or read book Developmental Evaluation written by Michael Quinn Patton and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 2010-06-14 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables. Provided is essential guidance for making evaluations useful, practical, and credible in support of social change.

Download or read book Improving Evaluation in Nonprofit Organizations written by Nakia S. Matthews and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is often necessary for nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to formulate a Request for Proposal (RFP) to procure essential contracted services. This is most common when seeking the services of an external evaluator. Since most NPOs do not have internal evaluation staff, developing an appropriate RFP can be quite challenging. With limited literature and resources to guide NPOs on how to prepare RFPs, the process for procuring qualified evaluators can be even more daunting. This lack of resources and supports can lead to insufficient or incomplete RFPs, subsequently narrowing the pool of qualified potential bidders and reducing the extent to which the outcomes envisioned in RFPs are fulfilled. Funding agencies regularly cite accountability and sustainability as two key features for nonprofit organizations that are linked to their capacity to have a positive impact on communities or target populations. The ability of nonprofit organizations to recruit, select, and oversee contracted evaluators is closely connected to both accountability and sustainability. This study explores how nonprofit organizations navigate through the RFP process. Three stages of the process were investigated: (1) RFP development, (2) RFP response, and (3) RFP fulfillment. An exploratory study using a mixed-methods design was used to better understand how RFPs are developed and fulfilled. The study also describes the relevant attributes of nonprofit organizations and staff responsible for overseeing evaluations, as well as the interactions between these organizations and the evaluation consultants they hire. The findings indicate that training in RFP development and a general understanding of evaluation leads to intended outcomes around fulfillment. Training is particularly important for small nonprofit organizations with limited time, staff, and budgets. The obstacles and challenges faced by these NPOs ultimately impact what can be learned from an evaluation. However, technical assistance from sponsor organizations can help nonprofit organizations overcome these challenges and presumably increase community impact around funding goals. Training workshops, dissemination of tools, and coaching of staff in nonprofit organizations by a professional evaluator can potentially improve how often and how well RFPs are fulfilled.

Download or read book Leap of Reason written by Mario Morino and published by Mario Morino. This book was released on 2011 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leap of Reason is the product of decades of hard-won insights from philanthropist Mario Morino, McKinsey & Company, and top social-sector innovators. It is intended to spark the critically important conversations that every nonprofit board and leadership team should have in this new era of austerity. The authors make a convincing case that the nation's growing fiscal crisis will force all of us in the social sector to be clearer about our aspirations, more intentional in defining our approaches, more rigorous in gauging our progress, more willing to admit mistakes, more capable of quickly adapting and improving--all with an unrelenting focus on improving lives.

Download or read book The Great Nonprofit Evaluation Reboot A New Approach Every Staff Member Can Understand written by Elena Harman and published by Charitychannel LLC. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Amy Eisenstein, MPA, ACFRE, has written a brilliant development planning tool designed to help nonprofit professionals and board members raise more money for the organizations they love. She provides easy-to-implement strategies and tips that you can implement immediately, without any additional staff or resources. If you are working in a small development shop—or if you ARE the small development shop—you want this book! By "small development office," Eisenstein means an organization with a budget of under $3 million, and/or less than three paid development staff members. This includes a "zero" development staff shop, which is an organization with no paid development staff member and where the executive director/CEO, program staff, and/or volunteers are responsible for all the fundraising.

Download or read book Manager s Guide to Program Evaluation 2nd Edition written by Paul W Mattessich and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Your Guide to Getting a Useful Evaluation, now updated and revised in this second edition. Evaluation is vital and beneficial to any nonprofit organization. An effective evaluation can help identify an organization's successes, share information with key audiences, and improve services. It can confirm that an organization is truly making a difference, or what changes an organization needs to make in order to improve. This book describes what types of information to collect and what questions this information can answer, details the four phases of evaluation and the steps involved in each phase, and provides information on various types of research consultants and advice on selecting one. If you are an organization manager, decision maker, policymaker, funder, researcher, or student studying applied social service research, this guide is an essential resource for your knowledge of effective organizational management.

Download or read book Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation written by Joseph S. Wholey and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 2004-05-31 with total page 768 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation offers managers, analysts, consultants, and educators in government, nonprofit, and private institutions a valuable resource that outlines efficient and economical methods for assessing program results and identifying ways to improve program performance. The Handbook has been thoroughly revised. Many new chapters have been prepared for this edition, including chapters on logic modeling and on evaluation applications for small nonprofit organizations. The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation is a comprehensive resource on evaluation, covering both in-depth program evaluations and performance monitoring. It presents evaluation methods that will be useful at all levels of government and in nonprofit organizations.

Download or read book The Non Nonprofit written by Steve Rothschild and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A top business leader shares the business principles he used to launch both a top company and a thriving nonprofit Nonprofit leaders know that solving pervasive social problems requires passion and creativity as well as tangible results. The Non Nonprofit shares the same business principles that drive the world's best companies, showing how they can (and should) be applied to the realm of nonprofits. Steve Rothschild personally crossed sectors when he left corporate America to found Twin Cities RISE!, a highly successful poverty reduction program. His honest story, and success and missteps, create an essential roadmap for any social venture looking to prove and boost its impact. Distills essential nonprofit principles such as having a clear and appropriate purpose, creating economic value from social benefit, and establishing mutual accountability Shares successful approaches from innovative organizations such as Grameen Bank, Playworks, Common Ground, Habitat for Humanity, Lumni, Caring Bridge, College Summit and RISE! Draws from the author's success in founding and building Twin Cities RISE!, which trains unemployed Minnesotans for living wage jobs. RISE! serves 1,500 participants each year As insightful as it is inspiring, The Non Nonprofit can help maximize the positive impact of any nonprofit.

Download or read book Engine of Impact written by William F. Meehan III and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are entering a new era—an era of impact. The largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will soon be under way, bringing with it the potential for huge increases in philanthropic funding. Engine of Impact shows how nonprofits can apply the principles of strategic leadership to attract greater financial support and leverage that funding to maximum effect. As Good to Great author Jim Collins writes in his foreword, this book offers "a detailed roadmap of disciplined thought and action for turning a good nonprofit into one that can achieve great impact at scale." William F. Meehan III and Kim Starkey Jonker identify seven essential components of strategic leadership that set high-achieving organizations apart from the rest of the nonprofit sector. Together, these components form an "engine of impact"—a system that organizations must build, tune, and fuel if they hope to make a real difference in the world. Drawing on decades of teaching, advising, grantmaking, and research, Meehan and Jonker provide an actionable guide that executives, staff, board members, and donors can use to jumpstart their own performance and to achieve extraordinary results for their organization. Along with setting forth best practices using real-world examples, the authors outline common management challenges faced by nonprofits, showing how these challenges differ from those faced by for-profit businesses in important and often-overlooked ways. By offering crucial insights on the fundamentals of nonprofit management, this book will help leaders equip their organizations to fire on all cylinders and unleash the full potential of the nonprofit sector. Visit www.engineofimpact.org for additional information.

Download or read book How Participatory Evaluation Research Affects the Management Control Process of a Multinational Nonprofit Organization written by Gail J. Fults and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title, first published in 1993, addresses two questions: can evaluation research function as a surrogate market in non-profit organisations to measure, value, and assess the goods and services they provide? And second, can the findings from an evaluation process be incorporated as a service accomplishment element into the accounting information published by non-profit organisations? This title will be of interest to students of business studies.

Download or read book The Talent Development Platform written by Heather Carpenter and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Putting People First in Social Change Organizations The Talent Development Platform is about results driven talent development for social change. Written by seasoned nonprofit experts, this book provides a holistic process for creating an in-house training and talent development program. The Talent Development Platform offers organizations the tools for ensuring their professional development systems are successful through regular feedback loops, tailored for learning styles, and specific to their organization. Detailed case studies provide insight into the strategies used by organizations that have implemented the Talent Development Platform, and interviews with experts in the field give readers a handle on the most current thinking. Robust resource guides facilitate the talent development process, and online access to the Talent Development Platform and assessments help streamline the workflow. Social change organizations make the most of limited resources, but often overlook developing the talent they already have. This book gives readers a plan for finding and nurturing their internal talent to reduce turnover and improve organizational efficiency. More specifically the book helps organizations: Develop organizational, department, and position specific competencies. Create and revise job descriptions. Assess staff and volunteer proficiency levels with created competencies. Determine staff and volunteer learning styles. Establish professional development goals and objectives tied to strategic goals. Implement professional development with on the job learning, mentoring, and training. Calculate a return on talent investment. Evaluate talent development implementation and proficiency level changes. Implementing the Talent Development Platform provides organizations with tangible benefits in the form of lower turnover and greater output (without the burnout) from employees and volunteers, as well as intangible benefits that make organizations more attractive to top talent.

Download or read book The Goldilocks Challenge written by Mary Kay Gugerty and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The social sector provides services to a wide range of people throughout the world with the aim of creating social value. While doing good is great, doing it well is even better. These organizations, whether nonprofit, for-profit, or public, increasingly need to demonstrate that their efforts are making a positive impact on the world, especially as competition for funding and other scarce resources increases. This heightened focus on impact is positive: learning whether we are making a difference enhances our ability to address pressing social problems effectively and is critical to wise stewardship of resources. Yet demonstrating efficacy remains a big hurdle for most organizations. The Goldilocks Challenge provides a parsimonious framework for measuring the strategies and impact of social sector organizations. A good data strategy starts first with a sound theory of change that helps organizations decide what elements they should monitor and measure. With a theory of change providing solid underpinning, the Goldilocks framework then puts forward four key principles, the CART principles: Credible data that are high quality and analyzed appropriately, Actionable data will actually influence future decisions; Responsible data create more benefits than costs; and Transportable data build knowledge that can be used in the future and by others. Mary Kay Gugerty and Dean Karlan combine their extensive experience working with nonprofits, for-profits and government with their understanding of measuring effectiveness in this insightful guide to thinking about and implementing evidence-based change. This book is an invaluable asset for nonprofit, social enterprise and government leaders, managers, and funders-including anyone considering making a charitable contribution to a nonprofit-to ensure that these organizations get it "just right" by knowing what data to collect, how to collect it, how it can be analyzed, and drawing implications from the analysis. Everyone who wants to make positive change should focus on the top priority: using data to learn, innovate, and improve program implementation over time. Gugerty and Karlan show how.

Download or read book A Toolkit for Effective Everyday Activism written by Alison Rogers and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-26 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how everyday activists can enhance their effectiveness. Leanne Kelly and Alison Rogers unpack theories from the social sciences to help find meaning, explain these feelings of inertia, and provide strategies to overcome them. Through lessons learned over their careers as evaluators in non-profit organisations, Kelly and Rogers provide tools and strategies for measuring, improving, and sharing the effectiveness of planet-saving activities. They draw upon interviews with everyday people who are contributing to change in their homes, community groups, workplaces, and social settings to understand how they motivate and encourage others. The book concludes with a realistic look at individual expectations and focuses on how to prioritise self-care to ensure that activists can keep contributing in a way that maintains their wellbeing and balance. A Toolkit for Effective Everyday Activism empowers people to use theory, research, and practical tools to leverage their power so they can make the maximum contribution possible and sustain their efforts over the long term. It will be a great resource for individuals working and volunteering in community groups, NGOs, and non-profit and corporate organisations with an environmental focus.

Download or read book Forces for Good written by Leslie R. Crutchfield and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-05-01 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition of a groundbreaking book on best practices for nonprofits What makes great nonprofits great? In the original book, authors Crutchfield and McLeod Grant employed a rigorous research methodology derived from for-profit books like Built to Last. They studied 12 nonprofits that have achieved extraordinary levels of impact—from Habitat for Humanity to the Heritage Foundation—and distilled six counterintuitive practices that these organizations use to change the world. Features a new introduction that explores the new context in which nonprofits operate and the consequences for these organizations Includes a new chapter on applying the Six Practices to small, local nonprofits, including some examples of these organizations Contains an update on the 12 organizations featured in the original book—how they have fared, what they've learned, and where they are now in their growth trajectory This book has lessons for all readers interested in creating significant social change, including nonprofit managers, donors, and volunteers.