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How to Ask Powerful Questions [Webinar]presentation Jul 2019
How to Ask Powerful Questions [Webinar]
The kinds of questions we often pose — Did the intervention work? What are we learning about a particular issue? — may lead to information that is a useful input into learning, but they often don’t help us determine what to do next. This webinar shows us how to ask questions that, if answered, will make a difference in how we do our work.
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Are you really ready for developmental evaluation? You may have to get out of your own way.insight Jul 2019
Are you really ready for developmental evaluation? You may have to get out of your own way.
Developmental evaluation can create anxieties and disappointments for evaluation commissioners and evaluators who apply conventional evaluation routines to an evaluation endeavor that is fundamentally different.
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Transitions and Transformations for Evaluation’s Role in Philanthropyevent Jun 2019
Transitions and Transformations for Evaluation’s Role in Philanthropy
The 2019 Evaluation Roundtable convening explored how evaluation leaders—working within or with foundations—can manage change not just defensively, but proactively and productively.
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When Opportunity Knocks, Open the Door: Evaluation Amidst Transition at the Colorado Health Foundationpublication Jun 2019
When Opportunity Knocks, Open the Door: Evaluation Amidst Transition at the Colorado Health Foundation
The Colorado Health Foundation experienced multiple organizational transitions in a short period of time, including two strategy redesigns, culture and values shifts, new expectations and assumption about roles and performance, and a new CEO. This teaching case invites reflection on the role of evaluation staff and consultants amidst the uncertainty and ambiguity of organizational change.
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Realigning Foundation Trustees to Incentivize Learningpublication Jun 2019
Realigning Foundation Trustees to Incentivize Learning
A common barrier for the development of a foundation's learning culture is how staff and boards engage. The problem is that most of the routines in the board room are actually based on the mental model that social change is a technocratic problem-solving endeavor. There could be a lot of power in starting to change the routines and habits that hold that technocratic mental model in place.
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Precipitating Events and Rewards in Making a Habit of Learninginsight Jun 2018
Precipitating Events and Rewards in Making a Habit of Learning
Better habits around learning are critical to improving philanthropic practice. This piece looks at what needs to happen before and after habit change to make a new way of working stick.
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5-A-Day: Learning By Force of Habitinsight Jun 2018
5-A-Day: Learning By Force of Habit
Establishing a learning organization or culture is such a big goal that it can overwhelm our ability to act on it. This piece, published on Medium, explores how building learning habits into common routines makes it more manageable, and creates small wins that can lead to big change. Focusing on habits ensures that learning is not a separate activity, but rather is integrated into our day-to-day work.
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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Consequences of Small Failures in Learninginsight May 2018
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Consequences of Small Failures in Learning
It was the worst U.S. maritime disaster in three decades, involving an experienced captain with a reputation for safety. This article, published on Medium, explains went wrong and what it can teach us about the often-overlooked factors that affect our learning and decisions.
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Addendum to On the Other Side of Complexity: The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Programpublication Jan 2018
Addendum to On the Other Side of Complexity: The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program
This addendum makes clarifications to the teaching case of The McKnight Foundation's Collaborative Crop Research Program and its evaluation. It adds detail on the program's developmental evaluation.
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Evaluating Coalitions and Networks: Frameworks, Needs, and Opportunitiespublication Dec 2017
Evaluating Coalitions and Networks: Frameworks, Needs, and Opportunities
An impressive array of approaches, frameworks, and tools have been developed to evaluate coalitions and networks. This brief critically examines these resources, and points to challenges and opportunities that remain in efforts to assess their effectiveness and impact.
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Better, Faster, Results – Supporting Learning for Multiple Audiencespresentation Sep 2017
Better, Faster, Results – Supporting Learning for Multiple Audiences
How can foundations build an approach that is connected to robust data and information and supports the many learning needs of multiple actors? This presentation for the 2017 Evaluation Roundtable convening is on strategies for supporting learning in philanthropy. It presents questions, challenges, and implications for foundation practice.
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On the Other Side of Complexity: The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Programpublication Sep 2017
On the Other Side of Complexity: The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program
Under the direction of a new president, The McKnight Foundation embarked on a process to imbue learning at every level of one of its signature international programs: the Collaborative Crop Research Program (CCRP). This teaching case explores the creation, implementation, and ongoing refinement of an evaluation and learning approach for CCRP from 2008 to 2017.