Challenge:
The Environmental Health Strategy Center (EHSC) and its partners within the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine were preparing to undertake an ambitious civic engagement project to educate legislative candidates and expand the Alliance’s activist base. The Alliance had committed to provide its funder with an independent assessment of the impact of the project and needed guidance about integrating evaluation benchmarks and measurements into its program in an ongoing manner.
Solution:
grassroots solutions worked closely with EHSC and its partners to design an evaluation framework and integrate real-time benchmarks and measurements into existing CHACE project plans. The CHACE evaluation framework combined quantitative and qualitative elements. The quantitative elemzents of the evaluation framework involved tracking the measurable impact of candidate education and field activities against pre-determined candidate baselines and grassroots goals. The qualitative aspect of the evaluation concentrated on impressions of the CHACE civic engagement project, lessons learned, and reactions to goals versus outcomes. At the conclusion of the project, phone interviews were conducted with key stakeholders who were identified in conjunction with the Alliance. The interview results were examined by grassroots solutions for consistent feedback, key themes, and lessons learned, and then cross-referenced with the quantitative results and other relevant materials to inform the final evaluation report.
Results:
- grassroots solutions developed a comprehensive presentation of the evaluation findings. The evaluation also included recommendations about ways to modify or improve the CHACE project’s candidate education and base-building activities in the future, and increase the Alliance’s influence with decision-makers.
- The evaluation gave EHSC and its partners an independent resource to demonstrate success to its funders, and build upon the lessons learned if the project is replicated in 2010.