Are you overwhelmed on how to do nonprofit program evaluation?
You're not alone. Chari's here to help!
There are many ways to do program evaluation, making it difficult to know how to start. In this book, Chari outlines a clear approach, filled with real world stories as well as examples of evaluation plans, surveys, and reports.
Key topics addressed:
- Understand how to build buy-in for evaluation and address staff resistance and make a realistic program evaluation plan
- Create measurable outcomes for both grant applications and to guide program improvement
- Develop an impact and/or logic model that visually communicates what your program does and the difference it makes
- Create useful surveys that measure what matters
- Understand the choices in how to manage your data - spreadsheets v. database solutions
- Basic data analysis and reporting to make meaning of your data
Included with the book is a link to a companion website filled with downloadable real world examples and templates.
About Chari Smith
Chari Smith believes evaluation should be accessible, practical and usable. She founded Evaluation into Action to help nonprofit professionals create realistic and meaningful program evaluation processes. She has taught several workshops helping nonprofit professionals understand the value and use of program evaluation. She is also a wife, mother, jazz pianist, singer/songwriter, and devoted yogi.
Here's What People Are Saying about Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple
The ability to measure impact and share that success with the world is foundational to a thriving nonprofit and unlocks doors leading to visibility and funding. Leaders mistakenly believe that the process is too expensive, too timing consuming or that their kind of work can't be measured. Chari's approach to program evaluation will bust these myths and unlock these doors - offering a simple and accessible approach to your efforts to invite more people to know more and do more for your cause. Joan Garry, Author of Nonprofits are Messy, Principal at Joan Garry Consulting, and Founder of Nonprofit Leadership Lab
Understanding your organization's impact requires using data to learn and improve on a regular basis and that can be a daunting task. In this book, Chari Smith has demystified the process of creating an effective evaluation process for nonprofits. The book offers many practical tips that will help your organization improve results. Beth Kanter, Virtual Facilitator, Trainer, and Author
Making the complex simple, the complicated doable, the abstract concrete, and the frightening friendly takes a special combination of expertise, experience, and communications skill. Chari Smith brings all that and more to this accessible, important, and insightful book. Read, learn, and engage. Michael Quinn Patton, Founder and CEO, Utilization-Focused Evaluation
This book provides an excellent blueprint for nonprofits to follow as Smith outlines all the necessary steps to get from the idea phase of evaluation to creating reports and communicating the data in a way that shows impact of your program(s) that stakeholders, community members and funders will all understand and appreciate. Jean Hansen, Vice President - School Partnerships and Youth Outreach, Special Olympics Oregon
About the Author :
Chari believes evaluation should be accessible, practical and usable. She is a seasoned veteran in evaluation design, instrument development, data collection, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, findings dissemination, and utilizing findings. She has taught several workshops helping nonprofit professionals understand the value and use of program evaluation. She is also a wife, mother, jazz pianist, singer/songwriter, and devoted yogi.
Review :
This book represents a culture shift from exclusively chasing data to respond to funder requests to using data to learn...this book shows you how to integrate program evaluation into your day-to-day operations in order to improve programs and demonstrate your impact. Journal of Philanthropy & Marketing, Book review by Dr. David Fetterman, Author, Empowerment Evaluation, President & CEO of Fetterman and Associates
Chari Smith has produced a summary guide targeting professionals working in nonprofit organizations who are beginning their understanding of what is, and how to undertake, an evaluation. The tone of the book is bright and positive, the author clear, engaging, and professional. The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, Lisa O'Reilly MPA CE
...the author adopts a strong cultural approach to evaluation. It is more a textbook to be used by teachers in master class and by trainers for mid-managers positions in the public and nonprofit sectors.VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Book review by Andrea Bassi, Associate Professor in General Sociology
