Are you still dating your high school boyfriend? Kudos to you if you are. Or, if you married the guy, I’m envious! But if you’re like me, you’re in touch with only a few high school friends. As we take on new roles in our personal lives – as an aunt, business owner, member of …
Continue reading “Make the Most of Organizational Collaborations”
I bet you have a friend who owns an Apple watch, or a Garmin. Who keeps track of how many steps he’s taken before breakfast. Or how many vertical [feet? meters?] she’s skied in her morning on the slopes. Like me, did you think . . . what’s up with that? Is it making him …
“Tell Us How Much You Love Us.” That’s how a friend – who trains professionals all over the world – describes the average post-training evaluation survey. This is because surveys often just focus on three things: Participation: Were the group exercises engaging? Were there adequate bio and texting breaks? Was it easy to work out …
Continue reading “Improve Post-Training Surveys to Learn About Impact”
My mother left me my favorite kitchen tool: a small, serrated knife that peels, chops, and carves with ease. I reach for it first, before the dozen specialized knives in the block. I bet you also have a best-loved household tool. Maybe a hammer that has the perfect heft and fits your hand just right. …
Continue reading “New to Measurement and Learning for Social Change? Try the Five Questions”
In the mood for a tasty lesson on doing #advocacy right? Check out the Boston Globe’s “Food” section’s inspired campaign, #ProjectTakeout. https://bit.ly/3M9egTd #Project Takeout’s goal is to spur readers’ support for local independent restaurants during this second crushing pandemic winter. My favorite part is the feature “Three Places We Supported This Week.” https://bit.ly/3Hst1x5 Each weekly …
I recently had a great chat with my friend and colleague Ann Price, who hosts the Community Possibilities podcast at Community Evaluation Solutions. Ann’s expertise is working with community-based social service organizations both large and small on strategy design and evaluation for social change. We’ve connected over our passion for advocacy and policy change as …
Continue reading “Community Possibilities Podcast: Advocating for Social Change”
Monster green anteater movie trailers can improve your concept paper. Not immediately finding this obvious? Nuclear powers now square off over Twitter, and jumbotrons post marriage offers. In times like these, it seems logical to borrow magic from a medium that attracts millions of eyeballs. Grab that $8.00 bucket of popcorn and read on.
In a world where work can’t start until a cat is ejected from someone’s keyboard, private in-person business meetings are as rare as carbon paper. But a chat behind (real) closed doors is something that should not be lost entirely to the mists of time. In pre-pandemic 2019 I was an accidental witness to a …
Even in the best of times, proposals to change local services – such as roads and schools – are often controversial. And this, of course, is far from the best of times. Opponents of specific public works projects find ready allies in residents who are unnerved by changes to the city or neighborhood status quo …
Continue reading “Prevail in Local Level Policy Change by Maintaining the Narrative Upper Hand”
From before the United States even existed, political actors sought to get the narrative upper hand. No less a figure than Paul Revere forged public opinion with this propaganda image about the Boston Massacre. The engraving (a print from which is in the collection of the Concord Museum) helped inflame New Englanders’ sentiments against London’s …
