Assessment & Evaluation
Clients looking for these services say:
- “We can’t move forward until we measure the results of our programs and learn how well they are working.”
- “We need data to demonstrate our community’s needs.”
- “We would most benefit from an evaluation that embraces the full range of language, literacy, and ethnic diversity of our organization.”
- “We need to learn more about how to do a strong evaluation.”
In response:
1. New Perspectives delivers evaluation findings about the effectiveness and limitations of programs.
Clients benefit via:
- Evidence with which to make decisions about program expansion or redirection
- Locally-grown information with which to build community collaboration
- Program impact data to use in fundraising and advocacy efforts
- Feedback to give staff, board, and volunteers
Success Stories
Evaluation Data Leverages Change
After receiving feedback from a funder that its health and safety program needed a stronger evaluation, a labor union contacted New Perspectives for help. In response New Perspectives trained a diverse team of workers and union staff – most of whom had no evaluation experience – to work side-by-side with New Perspectives staff. The team then carried out a series of evaluation projects involving surveying and interviewing employees; analyzing quantitative and qualitative data; and developing various reports, articles, and presentations.
The resulting program improvement led the funder to indicate an interest in supporting additional projects. In addition, members of Congress used the team’s research findings to advocate for legislative action on worker health and safety. As a further benefit, team members have gone on to conduct evaluation projects on their own using their new skills and confidence. And evaluation has become institutionalized within the program.
Assessing Multiculturalism: A Call to Action
A local nonprofit contracted with New Perspectives to conduct an organizational diversity assessment. New Perspectives collected data on wages and other employment factors, conducted interviews and focus groups, analyzed this and other existing data, wrote a final report, and presented the findings to the board of directors and staff.
As a result, the organization developed organizational policies and culture changes supporting multiculturalism and contributing to higher employee satisfaction. In addition, now that the organization had its own house in better order, staff developed greater confidence and experience to draw on in launching an external initiative on multiculturalism.
2. New Perspectives provides assessment data about the conditions, experiences, skills, and vision of the people whose lives a program aims to impact.
Clients benefit via:
- Targeted findings to guide organizational and program planning decisions
- Briefing material for board and staff about the changing environment in which the program operates
- Findings to demonstrate to funders the need for programs
3. New Perspectives designs and implements culturally appropriate assessments and evaluations.
Clients benefit via:
- Data collection tools in multiple languages
- Survey and interview questions that approach respondents in culturally sensitive ways
- Non-traditional data collection methods to encourage participation
- Interviewers and surveyors who foster comfort among respondents
- User-friendly reporting tailored to key audiences
4. New Perspectives trains and coaches people in carrying out assessments and evaluations.
Clients who create internal teams to help conduct assessments and evaluations benefit via:
- Greater understanding of findings and commitment to using them thanks to team participation in generating the findings
- Increased appreciation of the value of data for decision making
- Enhanced organization learning
- Expanded capacity to conduct future evaluations
We provide the full range of assessment and evaluation services. And we work on complete projects, as highlighted below, or on a specific component, such as conducting focus groups.
- Design/planning
- Instrument development (surveys, interview or focus group guides, etc.)
- Data collection (mail, on-line, and phone surveying; phone or in-person individual and focus group interviewing, etc.)
- Data entry
- Data analysis (quantitative and qualitative)
- Reporting
- Findings dissemination strategizing
- Use of results for program and organizational planning
- Training and coaching of a team in any of the above
New Perspectives welcomes opportunities to work with clients in a participatory way by providing training and coaching and by working side-by-side with an internal team to complete a project.
We also conduct evaluations and assessments as exclusively “external” evaluators by completing initial design work in conjunction with a client and then carrying out the project independently.
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Success Stories
Evaluation Data Leverages Change
After receiving feedback from a funder that its health and safety program needed a stronger evaluation, a labor union contacted New Perspectives for help. In response New Perspectives trained a diverse team of workers and union staff – most of whom had no evaluation experience – to work side-by-side with New Perspectives staff. The team then carried out a series of evaluation projects involving surveying and interviewing employees; analyzing quantitative and qualitative data; and developing various reports, articles, and presentations.
The resulting program improvement led the funder to indicate an interest in supporting additional projects. In addition, members of Congress used the team’s research findings to advocate for legislative action on worker health and safety. As a further benefit, team members have gone on to conduct evaluation projects on their own using their new skills and confidence. And evaluation has become institutionalized within the program.
Assessing Multiculturalism: A Call to Action
A local nonprofit contracted with New Perspectives to conduct an organizational diversity assessment. New Perspectives collected data on wages and other employment factors, conducted interviews and focus groups, analyzed this and other existing data, wrote a final report, and presented the findings to the board of directors and staff.
As a result, the organization developed organizational policies and culture changes supporting multiculturalism and contributing to higher employee satisfaction. In addition, now that the organization had its own house in better order, staff developed greater confidence and experience to draw on in launching an external initiative on multiculturalism.
