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Spotlight on The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota: What role do values play in evaluation in the philanthropic center? by Rebecca Stewart and Leah Goldstein Moses

May 30, 2012 - 4:18pm

The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota formed over a year ago to focus specifically on issues here; it is one of three foundations (the other two are focused on Colorado and California) that emerged from the prior Phillips Family Foundation.

Valuing Evaluation in the World of Foundations by Sara Stalland and Leah Goldstein Moses

May 30, 2012 - 4:16pm

Foundations share similar needs and dilemmas as nonprofits and the public sector when it comes to evaluation. The Council on Foundations’ website lists reasons for involving and even expanding the philanthropic community in evaluation work, such as gauging the appropriateness of the objectives of the grants or the likelihood of raising additional funds.

Writing about Writing by Susan Murphy, Jessica Olson and Eric Wong

May 7, 2012 - 8:56am

We all need refreshers on current grammar and writing rules and expectations.

Lessons from Teaching about Evaluation by Leah Goldstein Moses

April 19, 2012 - 2:28pm

Over the past few years I’ve had several opportunities to teach evaluation. Most of my students have been people who manage programs or provide direct services in government or nonprofits. Often, evaluation is just one of many responsibilities they have in their work. I’m sure I’ve learned just as much as my students—including:

Evaluating Participant Experience by Leah Goldstein Moses

April 19, 2012 - 2:23pm

If you teach, lead workshops, or run group activities, you have probably asked participants to evaluate their experience. Here are a few tips to make that feedback truly useful:

Evaluator Bear April 2012 by artist Meleck Davis

April 19, 2012 - 2:17pm

Warmed up from MN evaluator hotspot: MESI 2012 by Jill Lipski Cain

April 17, 2012 - 7:30pm

With over 200 attendees and dozens of speakers, Minnesota Evaluation Studies Institute (MESI) 2012 was a stimulating, high quality conference for evaluators, students and anyone seeking more knowledge about the field. MESI provides a casual environment conducive to talking 1:1 with experts and sharing your own experience. I was pleased to meet a number of people who were not evaluators by trade, but there to learn about integrating evaluation in their own work.

Tips on Community Mapping

April 6, 2012 - 10:14am

Improve Group Staff members Stacy Johnson, Jill Lipski Cain and Liz Radel Freeman recently posted on the American Evaluation Association (AEA) 365 Tip-A-Day email alerts. Their topic is the community mapping data gathering method. The AEA alerts highl

Planting the Seeds of a Healthy Workplace by Liz Radel Freeman

April 3, 2012 - 8:02pm

In honor of the upcoming Earth Day (April 22), the Improve Group’s Workplace Environment (WE) Committee is launching an initiative for the month of April called “Planting the Seeds of a Healthy Workplace.” Each week, WE Comm

Huffington Post prints IG-gathered data for NPHRS Employment Survey

April 2, 2012 - 8:01pm

The Improve Group has recently been working with the national organization Nonprofits HR Solutions on collecting data for their 2012 Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey.

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