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Data Sharing Resources for Afterschool and Expanded Learning Programs and Systems
This resource highlights tools, publications, and reports that provide examples of promising practices for and guidance on data sharing for afterschool and expanded learning programs and systems.
Free. Available online only.
Afterschool Evaluation 101: How to Evaluate an Expanded Learning Program
Afterschool Evaluation 101 is a how-to guide for conducting an evaluation. It is designed to help out-of-school time (OST) program directors who have little or no evaluation experience develop an evaluation strategy. The guide will walk you through the early planning stages, help you select the evaluation design and data collection methods that are best suited to your program, and help you analyze the data and present the results.
Free. Available online only.
Measurement Tools for Evaluating Out-of-School Time Programs: An Evaluation Resource
As part of HFRP's continuing effort to help practitioners and evaluators choose appropriate evaluation methods, this guide describes measurement tools and assessments that can be obtained and used for on-the-ground program evaluation. Whether you are conducting first-time internal evaluations or large-scale national studies, these evaluation instruments can be used to assess the characteristics and outcomes of your programs, staff, and participants, and to collect other key information.
Webinar Archive—OST Data and Evaluation: Collecting and Sharing Data to Support Communities
This presentation examines the “essential data” that OST providers and intermediaries should consider collecting for an evaluation, and the important role families can play throughout the process.
Grantmaking to School Districts: Lessons for Foundations
This brief offers lessons and best practices from foundations across the country on grantmaking to school districts. It offers advice to foundations that are considering school district investments for the first time. It also offers a useful "check" to more experienced foundations that want to examine their thinking and approaches against the lessons and practices of other foundations.
Free. Available online only.
Scaling Impact: Six Takeaways
HFRP summarizes key observations in this issue of The Evaluation Exchange. Scaling impact often refers to scaling programs or interventions, but ideas, technologies, skills, and policies can also be scaled. Thinking about scale more broadly can reveal possibilities for scaling impact beyond the traditional business model of replication.
Why Facebook Matters for Nonprofits
Katie Chun of HFRP discusses the growing momentum and collateral challenges of Facebook as the next major vehicle for nonprofits.
New & Noteworthy
This section features an annotated list of papers, organizations, initiatives, and other resources related to this issue’s theme of scaling impact.
White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
HFRP describes the functions of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, created by President Obama last year in response to the perceived lack of innovation and use of rigorous approaches to identifying “what works” in the nonprofit sector. The new office seeks to address the need to identify and scale up successful nonprofit initiatives.
Current Issue - Scaling Impact
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores the promising practices and challenges associated with taking an enterprise to scale, along with the role that evaluation can and should play in that process. It is the second in our “hard-to-measure” series, which we inaugurated with our Spring 2007 issue on evaluating advocacy.
From the Director's Desk
An introduction to this issue's topic of Scaling Impact by Harvard Family Research Project Founder & Director, Heather B. Weiss, Ed.D.
Six Steps to Successfully Scale Impact in the Nonprofit Sector
Erin Harris of HFRP reviews the literature on this topic and discusses how nonprofits can successfully scale up an intervention, thus expanding impact to reach larger populations.
Developmental Stages for Evaluating Scale
Sarah-Kathryn McDonald of the University of Chicago describes a conceptual model designed to demonstrate the role of evaluation in the scale-up process.
Applying a Broader Concept of Scale to Evaluate a Funding Strategy
Erin Harris and Priscilla Little discuss how Harvard Family Research Project used a multidimensional concept of scale to evaluate The Atlantic Philanthropies’ Integrated Learning Cluster strategy.
The RALLY Program: Scaling an Inclusive Approach to Intervention and Prevention
Helen Janc Malone of HFRP describes an afterschool program’s strategy for scaling its services and the role of evaluation in the scaling process.
Scaling Social Entrepreneurial Impact: The SCALERS Model
Paul Bloom and Aaron Chatterji of Duke University discuss their model for conceptualizing scaling impact for social entrepreneurs—individuals who start up and lead new organizations or programs to address social problems using change strategies that differ from those used in the past.
A Conversation with Mike Smith
Marshall “Mike” Smith, senior counselor to the Secretary and director of international affairs at the U.S. Department of Education, discusses why the idea of scale entered the education policy conversation, the challenges involved in taking an intervention to scale in new settings, and what evaluation strategies should accompany the process of going to scale.
Early Evaluation to Inform Expansion of a Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
Roblyn Anderson Brigham and Jennifer Nahas discuss the implications of Brigham Nahas Research Associates’ evaluation of the Children’s Aid Society/Carrera Integrated School Model for expansion of the model to new school settings.
Save the Children’s Literacy Programs in Rural America: Evaluation That Informs Scale-Up
Elizabeth Reisner of Policy Studies Associates discusses how the learning gains of STC’s children’s literacy program relate to the program’s scaling process: evidence of participant learning influenced the growth and further development of the program positively and powerfully.
The Five Meanings of Scale in Philanthropy
Peter Frumkin of the University of Texas at Austin describes the five primary ways in which funders define scale as it relates to nonprofits’ efforts to create a lasting and significant impact, and warns that strategic giving requires a nuanced stance grounded in a clear understanding of the many meanings—and limits—of scale.
Broadening the Perspective on Scale
Julia Coffman of HFRP and the Center for Evaluation Innovation describes four approaches to scale that differ on both what is scaled and how it is scaled.
New Releases on Benchmarking Electronic Communications
In 2007, The Evaluation Exchange (XIII, 1) featured the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, a research effort that developed metrics to measure the effectiveness of nonprofit online advocacy and fundraising efforts. Katie Chun of HFRP describes recent releases from this effort and others that help nonprofits assess the success of their online and text-messaging strategies.
Lessons from Evaluators’ Experiences with Scale
Heidi Rosenberg of HFRP and Helen Westmoreland of the Flamboyan Foundation spoke with three evaluators, who share lessons from their experiences in evaluating programs as they went to scale, to discover how evaluation can inform and assess scaling efforts.
Spreading Our WINGS: Using Performance Data to Prepare for Scale-Up
Many nonprofits collect data to measure their impact. But as Ginny Deerin, CEO of WINGS for kids, describes, they can also mine a treasure trove of performance data to improve their program models even before they undergo the scaling process.
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies, a tool from Harvard Family Research Project, guides school districts to create a logic model that can aid in planning, implementing, assessing, and communicating about their systemic family engagement efforts.
Free. Available online only.