作为一个致力于改善科罗拉多人健康的基金会, it's important that we understand and share how we're making a difference. 学习 and evaluation is a way to inform and improve our work and help others understand our approaches.
Why is the Colorado Health Foundation committed to learning and evaluation?
In short: Because it’s absolutely critical to improving the health of Coloradans.
学习和评估一直是我们实践的核心, because we believe they have the potential to help us be better at our work. 学习 and evaluation help us hold ourselves accountable to the communities we exist to serve – always asking the questions of whether we’re living into our values, 我们的假设是否成立, and whether we’re helping communities move the needle on issues of health that are important to them.
我们相信学习是战略的核心, 评估是我们收集数据来指导学习的一种方式. 我们的学习和评估工作帮助我们:
- 做好计划. Lessons and evidence from our past and current work are used to inform our decisions about what will be the most effective path forward.
- 把工作做好. Continuous learning and improvement throughout the lifecycle of our work allows us to assess what is happening, 从中吸取教训, and make changes that will help us meet the needs of communities and have the greatest impact.
- 理解影响. We assess the extent to which our work is helping communities make progress towards improved health equity in Colorado.
卓越的典范
In order to ensure our investments are effectively working toward our mission, 我们的评估模型包含四个主要组成部分:
- Providing evidence that helps us answer operational and strategic questions
- 综合证据来了解我们如何改进
- Using what we’ve learned to inform our decisions and make course corrections as needed
- Assessing the impact of our work on contributing to the improved health of Coloradans
评价 can take many different forms and employ many different methods and measurement strategies. 有些问题最好通过简单的监测数据来解决, 而其他问题则需要更深入的评估. There are also many different types of questions that we may want to ask.
正因为如此, 每个评估项目看起来都不一样, 取决于我们想要回答的问题.
我们从工作中学习, 我们认为，我们应该与我们的受助人分享经验, 我们的合作伙伴和其他慈善机构. We are always looking for effective ways to communicate what we are learning in a way that will be useful for all our partners.
我们的工作以公平为中心
自2017年以来，学习 & 评价 department has turned the mirror on our own practices of evaluation as we try and better align our work with principles of equity. 我们从联合国的工作中得到了深刻的启示 公平评价倡议(EEI), which is a five-year endeavor that is building a field of practice around the 公平评估框架™(EEF)™)，特别关注慈善评估.
The EEF provided both a starting point and scaffold for our team in thinking about how to shift our own practices to align with principles of equity. It’s an invitation to develop a different relationship with evaluation – to change the way we are being, 思考和行动. 在实践中, the EEF challenges evaluators to constantly question things like the who, 评价的内容和原因:
- 谁来对这个评估做选择? 谁在对数据进行分析并得出结论?
- 评估的重点是什么? 哪些透视图被优先考虑，哪些被忽略?
- 我们为什么要回答这一系列问题? 我们为什么选择这种特殊的方法?
因为我们发现了更好的方法来把公平放在我们工作的中心, we continue to engage in an ongoing process of both learning and unlearning.
更多关于我们如何思考和实践
The following blog posts, articles and case studies provide a view into how our 学习 & 评估团队的思考与实践:
- 转变我们的评估实践:例子和案例研究 (2021) – Specific ways in which we’ve been evolving – in our evaluation practice at the Foundation and in our shared practice with evaluation partners (includes case studies from three of our partners).
- 学习 and Unlearning: Centering Equity in Our 评价 Practice (2020) – How we’re working to center equity in our work, both in our thinking and practice.
- Asking the Right Questions: A Tool for Initiative Planning and Adaptation (2020) – A framework that emerged from our collaboration with the Center for the Study of Social Policy around what counts as credible evidence, and how to think about rigorous evidence in the practice of creating and implementing strategy.
- 将DEI融入基金会的日常工作 (2020) – How three departments at the Foundation are living into principles of equity.
- 向公平评估的转变意味着从小事做起 (2019) – Examples from our early practice of embedding equity into our evaluation work.
- Building Principle-Based Strategic 学习: 的见解 From Practice (2019) – How we think about and practice strategic learning at the Foundation (written in collaboration with peer foundations).
- 当机会来临, Open the Door: 评价 Amidst Transition at 365bet官网中文登陆 (2019) – A teaching case study that was invited by the 评价 Roundtable, 并以此作为2019年会议的基础. A detailed, honest sharing of themes and tensions related to the work of the Foundation’s 学习 & 评估团队, and the team’s evolution within the context of an organization that is also intentionally changing.