Here at The Improve Group we always look forward to State Fair season. And being evaluators, we decided to ask IGers what they would like to evaluate at the Minnesota State Fair. Check out how fun evaluation can be when combined with fried food, a plethora of dairy, animals, and warm weather!
If you could evaluate one thing at the State Fair, what would it be?
Russell Barnes: Does one Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar give you more cookies than the other?
Hi, I’m Amy Cyr, a Senior Consultant at IG. For this month’s IG-Ology, I want to answer a question that comes up a lot with qualitative analysis: “Where do I start?” While several considerations go into planning an analysis approach, a place I like to start is with the evaluation or research questions. How specific are they?
It has been an exciting first half of the year here at The Improve Group as we welcomed several new employees! We continue to see growth in our work and in our clients’ needs - and this new cohort of IG-ers brings exciting new talents and experiences that will help meet those needs. Please join us in welcoming:
Hi, I’m Jill Lipski Cain, a Managing Consultant here at IG. This month, I want to tell you about one of IG’s important tools in collaborative, participatory, utilization-focused evaluation projects—an emerging findings meeting.
Working in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA/FAS) and The Improve Group, the University of Minnesota's Stakman-Borlaug Center (SBC) has identified the three closed Food for Progress agriculture assistance projects for
Did you know June is National Hunger Awareness Month? According to the World Food Program, there are more hungry people in the world than in the combined populations of the U.S., Canada, and the European Union.
Do you get annoyed by those pesky mosquitoes in the summer? You're not alone! Outdoor pests are the most prevalent barrier to outdoor recreation in the state—55 percent of Minnesotans cited them as a deterrence. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources recently released its findings of the Minnesota Outdoor Activities Survey; IG partnered with the agency to conduct this survey. For this project, we surveyed nearly 2,000 Minnesotans on how they view and participate in outdoor activities—from hiking to hunting.
Hi! I’m Kylie Nicholas, a managing consultant at IG and your IG-Ologist for the month of May! This month’s IG-Ology topic is longitudinal studies. These are studies that measure impact over multiple years by following the same group over a period of time.
Joel Luedtke is program director at the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota. The Improve Group recently finished an evaluation of the Foundation’s Phillips Sectoral Employment Initiative (PSEI).
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