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Level Best: How Small and Grassroots Nonprofits Can Tackle Evaluation and Talk Results
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, Oct 2006, Pages: 160
There is growing pressure on nonprofits of every size to be accountable in their work. The scrutiny of nonprofit organizations by government, watchdog groups and funding agencies is particularly hard felt by grassroots organizations whose work is not always easy to quantify, whose strategies are long-term and varied, and for whom the need for reasonable evaluation is critical to their credibility and to attract funding and constituents. The sheer number of evaluation reports which nonprofits are required to file with their funders each year has grown exponentially, and nonprofits are hungry for information on how to tackle this in ways that will not overwhelm already strained resources.
LEVEL BEST approaches evaluation by identifying and addressing the inherent challenges facing grassroots organizations under pressure to track activities and show results. Moving from early evaluation planning to final evaluation reports, LEVEL BEST discusses the reservations, resentments, pitfalls, and challenges that face grassroots organizations dealing with evaluation, and offers practical responses, affordable strategies, and language for talking about organizational results. It provides information in the way that is most useful to small nonprofits--- short and simple, direct, with bullet points and packages of information logically organized, easily found, and quickly absorbed.
LEVEL BEST walks readers through the steps needed to design or improve an evaluation process, help them determine what to measure and why, and provide sample strategies for tracking results and reporting back to funders and the community at large. Whether addressing planning, practice or communicating results, each section identifies the obvious as well as the unspoken fears, challenges and resistance that grassroots organizations often have to contend with relative to evaluation. The authors offer specific solutions and advice to these problems, as well as a host of user-friendly sample worksheets and forms designed to help nonprofits map out their own evaluation strategies.
Author information
Marcia Festen of Marcia K. Festen Associates in Chicago is a consultant to nonprofits and foundations.In addition to conducting evaluations, she develops policy and grantmaking strategies, programs, and initiatives. She was a senior program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and hasover twenty years of experience in the field.
Marianne Philbin is a writer, trainer, and consultant specializing in nonprofit organizational development.She has worked for a wide range of foundations and nonprofit organizations, and has an extensive background in grantmaking, fundraising, and nonprofit management. She is an instructor for the Donors Forum of Chicago and a lecturer at Northwestern Universitys School of Continuing Studies.
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