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Making the complex simple, the complicated doable, the abstract concrete, and the frightening friendly takes a special combination of expertise, experience, and communications skill. Chari Smith brings all that and more to this accessible, important, and insightful book. She shows how to design evaluations that are useful, focus on what's important, and turn findings into actions. Nonprofits will profit enormously from the step-by-step guidance that moves from preparation and planning through question formulation and data collection to making sense of and applying findings. This book delivers on its title. Read, learn, and engage.
Michael Quinn Patton
Founder and CEO, Utilization-Focused Evaluation
This book provides an excellent blueprint for nonprofits to follow as Smith outlines all the necessary steps to get from the idea phase of evaluation to creating reports and communicating the data in a way that shows impact of your program(s) that stakeholders, community members and funders will all understand and appreciate. I found Chapter 4 (Build A Culture of Evaluation) important as I have learned from her that evaluation is not done in a silo and this chapter specifically addresses how to build an organizational culture that will support all parts of the evaluation process.
Jean Hansen
School Partnerships and Youth Outreach, Special Olympics Oregon
Chari demonstrates a keen understanding of how important evaluation is to nonprofit work. She lays it out clearly with an easy-to-read style that makes evaluation understandable to nonprofits seeking to implement sound evaluation processes.
Mark R. McCrary
Program Coordinator, Grantmakers of Oregon and SW Washington
The evaluation design and monitoring for a program is something that I find often feels like a process that is overwhelming for staff resources or requires external support. However, with the steps and templates in this book as a reference, I believe any grant team (which I define as a group of colleagues with a stake in grants being successful) can approach evaluation design in a way that strengthens their grant applications and decreases the stress of their grant implementation and management.
Diane H. Leonard, GPC
President/Owner/Trainer, DH Leonard Consulting and Grant Writing Services, LLC
Understanding your organization’s impact requires using data to learn and improve on a regular basis and that can be a daunting task. In this book, Chari Smith has demystified the process of creating an effective evaluation process for nonprofits. The book offers many practical tips that will help your organization improve results.
Beth Kanter
Virtual Facilitator, Trainer, and Author, (www.bethkanter.org)
Chari Smith has written a comprehensive guide to do-it-yourself evaluation. She's realistic about what non-profits are getting themselves into, providing expert advice clearly grounded in years of experience. Evaluation IS a large undertaking - and one that will change an organization's culture for the better. Chari breaks down the steps of the process and makes it feel accomplishable. The many success stories from non-profit leaders throughout the book testify that evaluation doesn't have to be intimidating and can, in fact, help change the world.
Stephanie Evergreen
Author on 3 data visualization books
Founder of Evergreen Visualization Academy (academy,stephanieevergreen.com)
This book is perfect for nonprofits who are either not collecting performance data, or not using what they have effectively. Chari Smith has written an essential guide for nonprofits packed with numerous real-life examples and a ton of practical, straightforward advice to motivate staff at every level in this area.
Kylie Hutchinson
Author of A Short Primer on Innovative Evaluation Reporting
The ability to measure impact and share that success with the world is foundational to a thriving nonprofit and unlock doors leading to visibility and funding. Leaders mistakenly believe that the process is too expensive, too timing consuming or that their kind of work can’t be measured. Chari’s approach to program evaluation will bust these myths and unlock these doors – offering a simple and accessible approach to your efforts to invite more people to know more and do more for your cause.
Joan Garry
Author of Nonprofits are Messy
Principal at Joan Garry Consulting and Founder of Nonprofit Leadership Lab
We have struggled for years to effectively collect the data that would allow us to make better programmatic decisions. We also struggle with developing a good core program plan and making sure employees are clear on the outcomes and outputs we expect from a program. As soon as I started reading, ideas I had struggled to understand fully began to crystalize. As a result, I communicated more easily what I wanted to my senior management team. We decided to read the book together in a ‘book club’ format. We intend to roll it out to all employees once we have finished. Highly recommend both the book and the companion website!
Carrie Rodmaker,
Executive Director, Taliesin Preservation
I found myself thinking about our evaluation process throughout the book and ways in which we can do more to highlight our value to our stakeholders. We are a part of a national network of organizations doing similar work. After reading this book, I was encouraged to pull together a group of individual leaders for a book club to figure out how we can apply the key takeaways at our local organizations and share best practices across our network.
David Cohns
Executive Director, First Tees Southeast Wisconsin
For more than 15 years I have worked in various capacities with nonprofit organizations. Through the years I have led the program evaluation and data reporting for these organizations. I was extremely excited to read Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple by Chari Smith. This text reaffirmed my current practices, but also provided me with new insights. I was looking for an easy to follow textbook for a new undergraduate program evaluation course I’m teaching at the University level. I am confident that this will be the perfect text for my students to learn from along with the real-world information I will provide. Chari provides wonderful resources as a companion to the book.
Shaunette Parker, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology, Lander University
Are you overwhelmed on how to do nonprofit program evaluation? You’re not alone. And I’m here to help!
There are many ways to do program evaluation, making it difficult to know how to start. Funders require data to demonstrate impact, which just adds to the stress. Those stressful and overwhelming days are over. This book outlines a clear approach, filled with real world stories as well as examples of evaluation plans, surveys, and reports. I detail exactly how to adopt this simple approach so that you have the data you need to satisfy funder requirements and to make program planning decisions.
Key topics addressed:
Bonus: Every book comes with access to a companion website, which is full of downloadable real-world examples and templates you can use to get started!
Special thanks to the following nonprofits generously allowing me to include excerpts from our work together in order to help others learn how to do program evaluation:
“This book represents a culture shift from exclusively chasing data to respond to funder requests to using data to learn…this book shows you how to integrate program evaluation into your day-to-day operations in order to improve programs and demonstrate your impact.”
Journal of Philanthropy & Marketing, February 2022
Book review by Dr. David Fetterman
Author, Empowerment Evaluation
President & CEO of Fetterman and Associates
“…the author adopts a strong cultural approach to evaluation. It is more a textbook to be used by teachers in master class and by trainers for mid-managers positions in the public and nonprofit sectors.”
VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations (2022)*
Book review by Andrea Bassi
Associate Professor in General Sociology
*Please note, if you’re not a subscriber, the full review is available for purchase.
“In Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple, Chari Smith has produced a summary guide targeting professionals working in nonprofit organizations who are beginning their understanding of what is, and how to undertake, an evaluation. The tone of the book is bright and positive, the author clear, engaging, and professional.”
The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation
Lisa O’Reilly MPA CE
“Chari Smith presents practical and easy to understand approaches to program evaluation processes…I strongly recommend this book for any nonprofit organization, but especially to those who are just getting started.”
Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
Shaunette Parker, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant, Professor of Psychology, Lander University
“This text would be a very useful addition to any nonprofit leader’s library.”
Journal of Social Work
Heidi Brocius
Professor, School of Social Work, University of Alaska
Check out the Evaluation into Action Store. I put some of my favorite Evaluation into Action illustrations and sayings on mugs, stainless steel tumblers, t-shirts, stickers and tote bags. These make great gifts as well as conference swag. You can also treat yourself to any of these items. If you don’t see what you want, let me know and I can make it happen.
Chari accurately captured the fundamental goals and mission of our organization and transformed our input into a clear evaluation process that helps us assess the impact of our programs on the lives of the families that we serve. Now we have an amazing way to measure the physical, emotional, and mental effects of our programs and to guide change, ensuring that we are delivering services in the most effective way possible.
Brandi Tuck, Executive Director, Path Home
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