Program Evaluation Overview

Increasingly, funders are asking nonprofit organizations to provide real evidence of their programs' impact.  Many organizations struggle to document, analyze and interpret data and provide a meaningful portrayal of their accomplishments.  Come join us to learn how evaluation can be a useful tool for your organization.

This brown bag session will present an overview of the upcoming four-session evaluation workshop series beginning in September 2011, "How Do You Know If You've Made a Difference: Evaluating Program Effectiveness."  The four workshops will cover knowledge, strategies and techniques that will enable nonprofit organizations to plan and focus a program evaluation, select an appropriate evaluation design, collect and analyze data, and to communicate their evaluation findings in a meaningful way.  The series will be facilitated by three evaluation professionals with extensive experience in evaluation in nonprofit, academic and government sectors.  Please note that any organization that wishes to participate in the evaluation workshop series must have someone attend this Program Evaluation Overview. 

Learning Objectives
- know how program evaluation can lead to a deeper understanding of their programs and how that understanding can enhance and improve program performance as well as empowering programs to advocate for program funding.
- introduction to upcoming program evaluation workshop series "How Do You Know If You've Made a Difference: Evaluating Program Effectiveness," including how to sign up and expectations from the series.

Level
Introductory: for anyone who wishes to learn about the importance of evaluation.

Presenter
Dr. Patty Emord has over twenty years experience working with community and nonprofit organizations, health professionals, academic settings, and private corporations. A strong facilitator with good interpersonal skills, Patty effectively leads groups in strategic planning, training and evaluation planning. Her services include facilitating organizational change and development, instructional design, providing training, and program evaluations. In her approach to projects, Patty stresses the importance of seeking stakeholder participation in organizational initiatives to yield useful and productive outcomes. She focuses on building capacity skills within organizations to help them become more self sufficient.