Overview
The
Rochester Effectiveness Partnership (REP) was a collaboration among
Rochester area funders, nonprofits, evaluators and several service
organizations to provide indepth, high-quality training in participatory
evaluation, followed by consistent coaching that was enduring enough
to result in significant practice changes. Over its 8-year history,
the Rochester Effectiveness Partnership program involved 52 institutional
partners represented by over 230 people. In addition, REP periodically
offered one-time learning opportunities that helped the broader community
of funders and service providers think more clearly about their work
and focus on effectiveness. REP created a unique model for
collaboration, one that enabled funders, providers and evaluation
professionals to become true partners, benefiting from each other's
knowledge and skills. The program evaluated itself each year and had
an independent evaluation in 2000. The executive summaries are linked
below.
Additional
Information
Rochester
Effectiveness Partnership Evaluation Summaries (PDF)
1997
Executive Summary, Year One Report
1998-1999
Executive Summary
2000
Summary Report
2000
InnoNet Evaluation Report
2002
Evaluation Report
2003
Final Evaluation Report, Executive Summary
The
Bruner Foundation was a major funder and participant in the Rochester
Effectiveness Partnership. The Foundation extended the work begun
with REP in their EthOS project. For more detailed information about
the REP program and the Bruner Foundation's continued focus on evaluation,
please visit their website.
Participatory
Evaluation
REP
used participatory evaluation as its primary learning vehicle. What
does the term, participatory evaluation, mean? Here are a few illustrations.
"Participatory
evaluation aims to create a learning process for the program recipients
that will help them in their effort to reach desired goals."
D. Greenwood and M. Levin, Introduction to Action Research, 1998,
p. 239.
"Participatory
evaluation is a process of self-assessment, collective knowledge production,
and cooperative action in which the stakeholders in a development
intervention participate substantively in the identification of the
evaluation issues, the design of the evaluation, the collection and
analysis of the data, and the action taken as a result of the evaluation
findings."
E. T. Jackson and Y. Kassam, Knowledge Shared, 1998, p. 3.
"One
of the negative connotations often associated with evaluation is that
it is something done to people. One is evaluated. Participatory evaluation,
in contrast, is a process controlled by the people in the program
or community. It is something they undertake as a formal, reflective
process for their own development and empowerment."
M. Patton, Qualitative Evaluation Methods, (2nd ed,), 1990, p.
129.
These
definitions are excerpted from the introduction to a guide to participatory
evaluation developed by Annalisa Lewis Raymer, a Ph.D. candidate at
Cornell University's Dept. of Education. For
more information.
REP
Training Description
Classes
met 30 times over 18 months (10 times every 6 months). Trainee teams
from provider partners learned approaches to participatory evaluation,
created and implemented an evaluation design for one program, developed
a report on lessons learned, and began applying learnings to their
work with intensive coaching. They then applied what they learned
to strengthen their evaluated program's outcomes; and supported
the extended use of evaluation throughout their agency. In 8 years,
REP hosted seven classes.
Individuals
who completed the class training could join the alumni study group
for continued coaching from REP's professional evaluators. The alumni
study group met once a month. Teams continued to work on their evaluation
projects and frequently came together to do other projects as a
group.
-
CEO
Training and Consulting
All CEOs
of organizations involved with REP, including funders, were encouraged
to attend the CEO training which was held in four meetings each
year. This was the CEO's opportunity to learn about the process
and benefits of participatory evaluation. In addition, provider
and funding partners received up to 5 hours of individual consulting
time with REP's professional evaluators.
This
group was open to all REP funders and met monthly. The group discussed
issues affecting nonprofit service delivery in the Rochester area,
shared their individual evaluations, performed studies to determine
best practices and hosted invited speakers on topics of mutual interest.
This team
shaped the activities and direction of REP and met six times each
year. Each REP partner had one vote on the Governance Team.
CEOs were expected to attend.
A 3-hour
training was offered each year to partner organization staff, board
members and volunteers who could benefit from learning more about
participatory evaluation and its application in their organizations.
This training reinforced the goal of the program to extend the use
of participatory evaluation throughout partner organizations.
-
Annual
Partner/Community Conference
Each year
REP partners came together to share the results of their learning
in poster sessions and extend their knowledge of evaluation through
targeted concurrent sessions. In years when new REP classes were
accepted, the nonprofit community was invited to attend the conference
as a tool for community awareness and recruitment.
For
other examples of the application of participatory evaluation, visit:
Community
Based Public Health Policy & Practice (PDF)
The
Nonprofit Quarterly
Participatory
Evaluation – information compiled by L. Coffin
United
Nations Development Programme
UN
Food and Agriculture Organization
USAID
Center for Development Information and Evaluation (PDF)