Addressing Health Disparities Linked to Climate Issues

In April, I had the pleasure of facilitating the Alliance of Nurses for Health Environments (ANHE) two-day strategic planning retreat. The goal was to chart a path forward that incorporated equity into their work, and we conducted interviews with members of the nursing community who were familiar with ANHE to understand how ANHE could best do this …

August Spark News: Getting Unstuck – Equity, Advocacy, and Collective Impact

Are We Getting Anywhere? At Spark, we’re experts at developing actionable strategies to achieve meaningful, measurable outcomes. But in today’s complex environment, it’s sometimes challenging for our partners to see the progress they’ve made. In our August newsletter, we’re sharing resources you can apply in real-life settings to measure your progress and take positive steps …

Evaluating Multi-stakeholder Advocacy Efforts

This is the second in a series of blogs on topics we’ll be presenting on at the American Evaluation Association’s (AEA) annual meeting, which will be in Atlanta, GA October 24-29. Today’s advocacy environment is complex, with multiple stakeholders working together in campaigns that range from informal networks to collaborative impact and other similarly coordinated …

June Spark News: Changing the World, One System at a Time

This month, we’re looking at how organizations can support large-scale systems change, either as a backbone, partner, evaluator, fiscal intermediary, or through many other roles. But we would be remiss if we didn’t take a moment to talk about what happened in Orlando. Earlier in June, we witnessed the worst mass shooting in our country’s …

The Case for Developmental Evaluation

This blog is co-authored by Marci Parkhurst and Hallie Preskill from FSG, Dr. Jewlya Lynn from Spark Policy Institute, and Marah Moore from i2i Institute. It is also posted on FSG’s website: www.fsg.org  In a recent blog post discussing the importance of good evidence in supporting systems change work, evaluation expert Lisbeth Schorr wrote, “To get better results in this …

Redefining Rigor: Describing quality evaluation in complex, adaptive settings

This blog is co-authored by Dr. Jewlya Lynn, Spark Policy Institute, and Hallie Preskill, FSG. The blog is also posted on FSG’s website: www.fsg.org  Traditionally, evaluation has focused on understanding whether a program is making progress against pre-determined indicators. In this context, the quality of the evaluation is often measured in part by the “rigor” …

Working in Fields

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how different it looks to work in a field instead of alone. And no, I don’t mean out in a field of flowers (though that sounds lovely). Rather, I’m referring to a field of organizations trying to cause the same type of change, though not necessarily in collaboration …

How do you know if you’re getting the best quality in your evaluations?

How do you know if you’re getting the best quality in your evaluations? Quality in evaluation used to be defined as rigor (and sometimes still is), with rigor meaning the competence of the evaluator, the legitimacy of the process and, of course, applying the best research methods to the collection and analysis of data. These …

A Better Place: Contemplating systems change in place based work

What does it take to trigger systemic changes that can improve quality of life in a community? One suggestion that emerged from the Better Place convening in San Diego earlier this month was the idea of novelty: we need a novel idea and then opportunities to test it, discover its value, and take it to …

Using Learning To Do Good, Even Better

One of the best parts of my job is helping organizations use learning to do good, even better. Recently, we worked with Project Health Colorado, a strategy funded by The Colorado Trust with support from The Colorado Health Foundation, focused on building public will to achieve access to health for all Coloradans by fostering a …

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