Your article makes significant points about the core purpose of the use of evaluation for any non-profit organization. I have heard all too many times about projects which “had to do an evaluation” in order to get funding. As a result, the evaluation was underfunded, poorly conceived and carried out.
As someone who has advocated the use of evaluation as part of a reflective process to learn and assess impact of initiatives both big and small, I resonated deeply with your suggestion that non-profits should take an active voice in setting the agenda, exploring meaningful evaluation approaches for this field as well as creating an awareness for the kind of language which is used to describe non-profit evaluation by a broad spectrum of funders and recipients of funds as well.
How could your suggestions which are so well outlined in your article serve to foster a reflection among people interested in non-profit evaluation about how we mutually understand and talk about non-profit evaluation to take this work to another level?
There’s an interesting and exciting trend in tech culture that’s on its way to mainstream called ‘Validated Learning’, which is a concept from a book called the Lean Startup.
The idea is that learning goals are better indicators of success than financial indicators for early innovations. If a startup can learn quickly, they have a better chance of long-term success, and that it’s these learning milestones that early stage startups should report. The idea is working its way into other ideas in the industry, with movements like ‘Growth Hacking’ which is about learning as its own goal.
This might be a more natural paradigm match for funders and donors to understand each other a little better.
Appreciative Inquiry practitioners have learned that ‘Words create Worlds” your article and the inquiry process support this, even more so when we realize that ‘Giving voice” and dealing with “inclusion and exclusion” processes in society is about identifying words, concepts and ideas that lead to empowerment, engagement and self-awareness. Your article is yet another indication that when engaging with: Social innovation, Civic voice and civic driven change it is worthwhile to reflect on the language we use. Thanks for pitching the argument that we need to learn to understand and choose when it is appropriate to use the business and scientific idiom and that in the civic field we need to contribute to the words used, or are we afraid or shy that the words we have used are not ‘good’ enough?
COMMENTS
BY Patricia Munro
ON May 30, 2014 04:32 AM
Your article makes significant points about the core purpose of the use of evaluation for any non-profit organization. I have heard all too many times about projects which “had to do an evaluation” in order to get funding. As a result, the evaluation was underfunded, poorly conceived and carried out.
As someone who has advocated the use of evaluation as part of a reflective process to learn and assess impact of initiatives both big and small, I resonated deeply with your suggestion that non-profits should take an active voice in setting the agenda, exploring meaningful evaluation approaches for this field as well as creating an awareness for the kind of language which is used to describe non-profit evaluation by a broad spectrum of funders and recipients of funds as well.
How could your suggestions which are so well outlined in your article serve to foster a reflection among people interested in non-profit evaluation about how we mutually understand and talk about non-profit evaluation to take this work to another level?
BY Alex
ON May 30, 2014 04:34 AM
An excellent article. Thanks for setting out an issue I am grappling with so succinctly.
BY Jeremy Largman
ON May 30, 2014 05:25 PM
There’s an interesting and exciting trend in tech culture that’s on its way to mainstream called ‘Validated Learning’, which is a concept from a book called the Lean Startup.
The idea is that learning goals are better indicators of success than financial indicators for early innovations. If a startup can learn quickly, they have a better chance of long-term success, and that it’s these learning milestones that early stage startups should report. The idea is working its way into other ideas in the industry, with movements like ‘Growth Hacking’ which is about learning as its own goal.
This might be a more natural paradigm match for funders and donors to understand each other a little better.
BY Russell Kerkhoven
ON June 2, 2014 05:34 AM
Appreciative Inquiry practitioners have learned that ‘Words create Worlds” your article and the inquiry process support this, even more so when we realize that ‘Giving voice” and dealing with “inclusion and exclusion” processes in society is about identifying words, concepts and ideas that lead to empowerment, engagement and self-awareness. Your article is yet another indication that when engaging with: Social innovation, Civic voice and civic driven change it is worthwhile to reflect on the language we use. Thanks for pitching the argument that we need to learn to understand and choose when it is appropriate to use the business and scientific idiom and that in the civic field we need to contribute to the words used, or are we afraid or shy that the words we have used are not ‘good’ enough?