Organizational Learning & Evaluation Capacity Building
Sara Greller, MS (she/her/hers)
Senior Research and Evaluation Associate
Education Development Center (EDC), Colorado, United States
Erin Stafford, MA (she/her/hers)
Project Director/Lead Evaluator
Education Development Center (EDC)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Location: White River Ballroom I
As evaluators, we hope that the final report and handover of evaluation results are just the beginning for our clients, their partners, and their funders. But how do we ensure that clients, partners, and funders are making meaning of the evaluation results? How can we build in time and space within our evaluation scopes for clients, partners, and funders to not only understand evaluation findings, but make space to craft the story of what they learned from evaluation data and proactively share how it might shift their organizational approach to programming? In our work, we have realized that the final report or deliverable is not the end of the project, but just the beginning of supporting clients, partners, and funders as they seek to tell the story of their program or organizational learning journey through the lens of evaluation. In this session, hear about and discuss ways final evaluation reports and deliverables can be not the end of the project, but instead the start of the storytelling process for clients, partners, and funders. We will share three examples of projects where we have supported clients, partners, and funders in telling their own story of learning and evaluation use starting with, not ending with, the “final report and presentation.” Beyond simple dissemination of evaluation results, we will share lessons learned from these projects and tangible ideas for how to help build clients, partners, and funders capacities to tell their own story of meaning making. Following, we will facilitate a discussion about strategies and approaches for supporting clients, partners, and funders as they tell their stories and communicate about their lessons learned through the lens of evaluation.