InsideOut

“Without research, you’re just another person with an opinion.” –Ken Robinson

Evaluation is instrumental in developing and sustaining good work. Directors of social service organizations must demonstrate their impact in order to sustain funding; program directors must constantly improve their services in order to maintain integrity; funders must show the impact of their granting design to satisfy the scrutiny of their boards and benefactors.

For a long time, program effectiveness was communicated through sentimental anecdotes. These stories, while important in our hearts, cannot stand alone when one asks, "Why this program?" It is not sufficient to assume that an inspiring story about one child can be extrapolated to others. Nor do these stories guide us in program development and improvement.

Americans for the Arts now offers funders and arts education providers the opportunity to improve the quality of evaluations they read or produce. We’re offering a floating graduate-style course, replete with one-on-one coaching, and a curriculum designed specifically to fit into the overtaxed schedules nonprofit leaders. Learners demonstrate quality and impact. Arts education providers develop acumen and expertise, which will result in a higher capacity in identifying and reporting impact.

This course is available to bring to your community, to your grantees, or to your schools. It is made to travel, relying in part on in-person training, part on web-based learning, and part on one-on-one coaching. A starter course is available at our Annual Convention, one day prior to the larger program, on June 19.

Learners will complete the course with an understanding of evaluation design, execution, and use. This training will equip learners with tools and knowledge to complete a new or improved evaluation of their arts education instruction. They will learn to develop their work based upon the results of their survey. They will identify available sources to help them learn more. They will not only build capacity within their organization, but they will foster their own professional approach to evaluation now and in future positions.

Project-based learning made concurrent with one’s workload is a successful format for adult learning. Participants will integrate their professional work with their coursework, applying learning to create evaluation instruments that serve their program. The course will result in each organization’s own evaluation design, methodology, and execution plan. Those who complete the coursework will be able to use and refine the evaluation over years. Organizations will learn how to use evaluation data to show impact to the public and to improve their own programs.

Across each community, expertise and familiarity with evaluation vary. Arts organizations in particular are apprehensive about evaluation, in part because it appears to be a process foreign to their work. But evaluation is actually an inherent part of the creative process. When we make art we create, reflect and revise. These same steps are inherent to the evaluation process. We will translate the artistic process into effective and efficient program evaluation, leveraging existing knowledge to develop new expertise.

This course is based upon utilization-focused evaluation, a collaborative approach that involves the people who deliver the program. This approach to evaluation develops the practitioners’ expertise and relies less on an outside evaluator. Practitioners collaborate to embed evaluation into their work, creating an evaluation that can build the capacity of staff, improve program impact, and identify results. Resources remain inside the organization and are recycled to improve program.

Coursework will offer the following:

• The course will move systematically through evaluation, taking participants through the process, step-by-step. Participants’ learning will be embedded in the development of an evaluation plan for their own organization;
• Development of evaluation questions, methodology, and data-gathering tools;
• Instrument samples from both qualitative and quantitative as well as formative and summative evaluation;
• Regularly scheduled one-on-one coaching with an evaluation expert in addition to classes;
• Solutions to pitfalls, headaches, and challenges often encountered in evaluation.

This course is designed for any size organization and any discipline in the arts. Diversity of program strategies is welcome as are organizations with budgets from $100,000 into the millions.

This course is scalable–for more or less education, impact, and price. Contact John Abodeely (jabodeely [at] artsusa [dot] org) for details.

John Abodeely
Manager of Arts Education
Americans for the Arts
1000 Vermont Avenue NW, 6th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

T 202.371.2830
F 202.371.0424

http://www.AmericansForTheArts.org/ArtsEducation

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