Minnesota Council on Foundation’s Learning and Evaluation Roundtable (for staff at funding organizations)

DATE & TIME: Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 10:00am - 11:30am CDT

LOCATION: Webinar

ADMISSION FEE: $0.00

MEMBER ADMISSION FEE: $0.00

This is an exploratory meeting for Learning and Evaluation professionals working in funding organizations. At this roundtable, Learning and Evaluation professionals working in philanthropy will get to know each other, share about the work they are doing, and talk through questions and challenges with their peers. It is also an opportunity to start thinking about how Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF) can best support Evaluation and Learning staff moving forward.

Register

• On June 3, Feedback Labs is hosting a webinar to discuss how feedback loops are being used to improve nonprofit organizations' responses to COVID-19.

• If you're a funding organization, you can join other funders, the Fund for Shared Insight, and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations on May 19 for a conversation around building your listening and feedback practices.

The Evaluation Association of St. Louis is excited to offer American Evaluation Association affiliate members a webinar opportunity with David Fetterman, the founder of empowerment evaluation.

Register Here

Members: log-in here to access the affiliate registration code from MNEA. 

Instructions for joining the webinar will be sent out prior.

Workshop Description:
Empowerment evaluation is a stakeholder involvement approach to evaluation. It is aimed at learning and improvement. It helps people learn how to help themselves and become more self-determined, by learning how to monitor and evaluate their own programs and initiatives. Key concepts include: a critical friend (evaluator helping to guide their evaluation), cycles of reflection and action, and a community of learners. Principles guiding empowerment evaluation range from improvement to capacity building and accountability. The basic steps of empowerment evaluation include: 1) establishing a mission or unifying purpose; 2) taking stock – a baseline self-assessment designed to help measure growth and improvement; and 3) planning for the future – establishing goals and strategies to achieve objectives (based on their self-assessment), as well as credible evidence to monitor change. An evaluation dashboard is used to compare actual performance with quarterly milestones and annual goals. The role of the evaluator is that of a coach or facilitator in an empowerment evaluation, since the group is in charge of the evaluation itself. The workshop will highlight how empowerment evaluation produces measurable outcomes with case examples ranging from high tech companies such as Google and Hewlett-Packard to work in rural Arkansas and squatter settlements in South Africa. The workshop will introduce participants to the theory, concepts, principles, and steps of empowerment evaluation as well as the technological tools to facilitate the approach.

Presenter:

David M. Fetterman is the President and CEO of Fetterman & Associates, an international ethnographic and evaluation consultation firm. He works in a wide range of settings, ranging from townships in South Africa to Google in Silicon Valley. Clients and sponsors include: the U.S. Department of Education, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Hewlett Packard Philanthropy, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and Arkansas Department of Education. David has also provided consultation services for the: Ministry of Education in Japan, Ministry of Health in Brazil, Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, and Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry of Māori Development) in New Zealand.

He concurrently serves as a member of the faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute and the University of Charleston. Dr. Fetterman has over 25 years of experience at Stanford University. He was a Consulting Professor of Education in the School of Education and the Director of Evaluation in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Formerly, he served as a Professor and Research Director at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Principal Research Scientist at the American Institutes for Research, and a Senior Associate and Project Director at RMC Research Corporation. He received his PhD from Stanford University in educational and medical anthropology.

David is a past-president of the American Anthropological Association’s Council on Anthropology and Education and the American Evaluation Association. He is a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. David received the Top Anthropologist of the Year 2019 Award; the American Anthropological Association’s President’s Award; George and Louise Spindler Award, for outstanding contributions to educational anthropology; and the Ethnographic Evaluation Award. He also received the Paul Lazarsfeld Award for Outstanding Contributions to Evaluation Theory and the Myrdal Award for Cumulative Contributions to Evaluation Practice―the American Evaluation Association’s highest honors.

Fetterman has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias and is the author of Ethnography: Step by Step (4th edition); Excellence and Equality: A Qualitatively Different Perspective on Gifted and Talented Education; and Empowerment Evaluation in the Digital Villages: Hewlett-Packard’s $15 Million Race Toward Social Justice. Dr. Fetterman is the editor of: Ethnography in Educational Evaluation; Educational Evaluation: Ethnography in Theory, Practice, and Politics; Speaking the Language of Power: Communication, Collaboration, and Advocacy (translating ethnography into action); Qualitative Approaches to Evaluation in Education: The Silent Scientific Revolution; Empowerment Evaluation: Knowledge and Tools for Self-assessment, Evaluation Capacity Building, and Accountability; Empowerment Evaluation Principles in Practice; and Foundations of Empowerment Evaluation. (Details of the projects are available at http://www.drdavidfetterman.com).

While you are looking to stay connected to your teams, we recommend browsing the AEA Coffee Break library on the Digital Knowledge Hub. These 20 minute webinars are free to all members. 

The ACE Evaluation Network Spring Call for Qualifications is open!

The Advancing Culturally-responsive and Equitable (ACE) Evaluation Network invites experienced evaluators to join our diverse community of professionals whose mission is to both drive and support the practice of excellent, culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE).

Joining the ACE Evaluation Network is free and provides opportunities to build networking connections, establish evaluation contracts, and pursue professional development. Expanding the Bench™ (ETB) specifically invites evaluators from historically marginalized and under-supported groups to apply for Network membership. Membership criteria include:

• 7 years (or more) of paid evaluation experience and expertise
• Authorship and writing quality
• Project management resources
• Knowledge and practice of CREE

Learn more and apply to join the ACE Evaluation Network: https://expandingthebench.org/ace/become-a-member/

Responses to the Call for Qualifications are due on Monday, April 27, 2020 by 5:00 pm ET/ 4:00 pm CT/ 3:00 pm MT/ 2:00 pm PT/ 1:00 pm AKT/ 11:00 am HT.

Please contact the ETB Team at team@expandingthebench.org with any questions.

The Expanding the Bench Team