query: outcome measures

[colist-admin at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed:  thanks to John and Laura for the resources on measuring organizing 
outcomes. More are welcome.]


From: "John Gaudette" <gaudette at forward.net>

The Applied Research Center (ARC) out of Oakland has done some very good
stuff in education around outcome based evaluation.  They are the only group
I have worked with that wasn't focused on "re-educating" organizers, they
build on the knowledge and experience of the organization.

John Gaudette

**************************

From: "Laura McKieran" <lmckieran at vei.net>

Check the COMM-ORG archives, Gina, probably between spring of 1999 and spring 
of 2000.  As I remember it veered off into a spirited discussion of why more 
United Ways (many of whom measure outcomes) don't fund organizing, but it 
might help.

Also, I went to Google (www.google.com) and searched "community organizing 
outcomes" and came up with pages and pages of stuff, much of which is 
probably junk, but some of it looks relevant.

And finally, you should also consider joining EVALTALK, the American 
Evaluation Association list (http://www.eval.org/Listservs.htm), and asking 
your question there.

But what you'll probably hear from any outcome measurement type (including 
me) is that it boils down to exactly what you're trying to accomplish through 
the organizing.  Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on one's agenda) 
defining outcomes imposes some pretty serious discipline on the 'logic' of 
the organizing model(s) in use, and requires you to actually *determine and 
state* exactly what you're up to and how you plan to make it happen, which 
(in my opinion, anyway) doesn't happen all that often in organizing.  

what change(s) are you trying to effect?  With whom?  How would you know that 
change if you saw it?  So the point of all this is to say that organizing has 
so many potential purposes - from national policy change to concrete changes 
in individuals' lives - that I think you won't find other organizations' 
defined outcomes very useful unless they're doing work *very* similar to what 
you're interested in.

And then there's the whole other argument that outcomes may not be the most 
important thing to assess anyway, given the importance of *process* in so 
many models of organizing.

Always happy to muddy the issue on a Wednesday morning, :)
Laura