The Role of the Practitioner in the Next Generation of Evidence

In the next generation model for evidence building, we envision that practitioners become the drivers of their evidence agendas, equipped with the strategies, tools, and talent they need to rigorously evaluate their programs and strengthen outcomes for the communities they serve. We imagine an ecosystem less governed by power, misplaced incentives, and sluggish learning, and instead defined by a commitment of time, tools, and talent to continuous evidence building, linking improvement to impact. We imagine that R&D is not just the privilege of the private sector, but common practice of the social sector.

This brief, developed as part of a joint Project Evident – Brookings Institution initiative to advance the next generation of evidence building, discusses how we can build on promising use cases to support the conditions needed for nonprofits to embrace evidence-building practices and accelerate impact.

READ THE BRIEF

Seeking Talent Accelerator Nominations 

With the support of the Barr Foundation, Project Evident will launch its next Talent Accelerator for New England-based organizations in January 2020. This six-month, cohort-based learning model will help organizations test new ideas for building evidence, build leadership capacity and alignment around a shared evidence agenda, strengthen communication and use of data for decision-making, intentionally integrate diversity/equity/inclusion into evidence building activities, and clearly articulate the intended impact of services and programs.

Spotlight on Data & Technology

Project Evident often works with organizations to provide technical assistance around data preparation, exploration, visualization, and reporting. With support from the Leon Lowenstein Foundation, we recently partnered with LEAP Innovations, jump-starting a retrospective analysis of its curation process for ed-tech products. We worked with the LEAP team to identify actionable guiding questions; gathered, cleaned, and standardized years of data; and prototyped statistical methods for identifying trends in product quality in a variety of areas. With the initial analysis complete, we handed off the code and clean data to LEAP. Their data team is now combining the data with additional sources and building on our work. Interested in learning how we might help you manage and use data? Reach out to Ben Berres at bberres@projectevident.org.

New and Noteworthy

We are committed to building the field of data and evidence in the social sector by sharing knowledge and insights through resources, publications, and other vehicles.

Look for Project Evident at these upcoming events:

• 11/13-15 – Come visit our booth at Upswell in Chicago!
• AEA Evaluation 2019 in Minneapolis – Project Evident will be presenting two sessions:
  • 11/13 – Evaluators as “Accidental Techies”: What We’ve Learned About Database Implementation
  • 11/16 – A Roadmap for Continuous Improvement and Evidence Building
• Dreamforce in San Francisco – We’ll be part of two sessions:
  • 11/20 – Ensuring Effective Impact Measurement: The Impacting Responsibly Partnership
  • 11/21 – Using Reporting Frameworks As Part of Your Organization’s Impact

Project Evident is hiring! See postings here.

We issue our newsletter a few times a year, but you can get more frequent updates by following Project Evident on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Project Evident offers a comprehensive platform of tools, resources, and direct services that not only help practitioners and funders improve how they measure, evaluate, and report results, but also strengthen their alignment with each other. If you have questions on how to take control of your data and generate evidence for your organization, please reach out. We’d love to hear from you!