query: evaluating grassroots organizing

Tue Jul 29 12:34:00 CDT 2008

[ed:  thanks to James for the discussion.]

From: james whelan <james at thechangeagency.org>

Thanks, Dan, Kathy, Corey, Michelle, Robert, Bill and Margo

It’s interesting to note that the initial query about evaluating 
community organising generated responses that discussed collaboration 
between activists and academics. The assumption here seems to be either 
(1) in order to rigorously evaluate the impact of their organising, 
community groups need to or are likely to work with academics who have 
different skills and ways of thinking and/or (2) that academics are more 
likely to be interested in evaluating the impact of campaigns in terms 
of policy changes etc than organisers are.

The first chapter of ‘Routing the opposition: social movement, public 
policy and democracy’ offers some interesting thoughts on the nature and 
extent of activists’ and scholars’ attempts to measure the impacts of 
social movement campaigns.

Kathy referred to approaches to advocacy evaluation that incorporate a 
‘logic model’ and expressed concern that perhaps these approaches are 
not suited to community organising. Our small group, the Change Agency, 
initiated an action research project last year to identify, develop and 
modify, apply and learn from frameworks and tools for evaluating 
campaigns. During recent months we’ve applied a couple of models to 
grassroots campaigns we’re involved with (as educators and 
facilitators), and we’re planning a couple more trials in the near 
future. So far, our experience suggests that logic models are a great 
approach to ‘prospective’ evaluation – thinking deeply about the changes 
we hope to bring about and how we believe they’ll occur before investing 
time and energy in a campaign. Logic models challenge campaigners to 
articulate their theory of change in plain terms. During one campaign, 
the logic model that the team developed served as a guide during the 
campaign and allowed us to revisit our starting assumptions. On 
occasions, our assumptions proved to be erroneous. We over-estimated the 
depth of community readiness to take political action, for instance. So 
we were able to revisiting both our logic model (which we turned into a 
critical path) and the framework we planned to use for our retrospective 
evaluation once the campaign concluded. I’m sold.

Philanthropists in Australia are keen to support community groups in 
evaluating funded projects. We’re working with a consortium of funders 
to trial another set of evaluation tools in the next few weeks. And we 
recently developed an online evaluation questionnaire for participants 
in the recent Climate Camp – a week-long direct action convergence 
(http://www.climatecamp.org.au/2008/jul/06/climate-camp-evaluation-survey). 
It’s fascinating to witness people’s responses to evaluation – some 
folks participate enthusiastically while others present all kinds of 
arguments about why evaluation might be a process of ‘beating ourselves 
over the head’ or focusing on the disappointments and frustrations of 
organising instead of celebrating achievements. It seems that social 
movements have a way to go to engender a learning culture that embraces 
evaluation as a valued part of the campaign cycle and important habit in 
political analysis. 

I’m working my way through the various publications that have been 
identified so far in this discussion thread. Thanks everyone! I’d be 
especially keen to hear about simple, practical tools (eg workbooks, 
frameworks) that people are using to evaluate community campaigns and to 
read about people’s experiences with these tools.

Details of our action research project are online at 
http://www.thechangeagency.org/01_cms/details.asp?ID=82

One of our team just completed a literature review on this topic. Shoot 
me an email if you’d like a copy.

James  

Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
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>  
> [ed:  thanks to Bill for the resource.]
>
> From:
> "Ward, William" <wward at health.usf.edu>
>
>
> A good friend of mine, Al Wolfe, created a system for tracking the types 
> of interactions among non profit organizations which could be used to 
> determine some aspects of community organizing:
>  
> *    Alvin Wolfe
> *    Reviewed work(s): Research Methods in Social Network Analysis by 
> Linton C. Freeman; Douglas R. White; A. Kimball Romney
>
> *    American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 92, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), 
> pp. 824-826   (review consists of 3 pages)
> *    Published by: Blackwell Publishing 
> <http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black>  on 
> behalf of the American Anthropological Association 
> <http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=anthro> 
> *    Note: This article is a review of another work, such as a book, 
> film, musical composition, etc. The original work is not included in the 
> purchase of this review.
>
> Bill Ward
>
>
>
> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>   
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>>  
>> [ed:  thanks to Bob, Michelle, Corey, Kathy, and Matt for replying to 
>> Dan's query.]
>>
>> From: "Robert O. Bothwell" <bob at bobbothwell.org>
>>
>>
>> Dan:  You might want to review my work, Foundation Funding of Grassroots 
>> Organizations, which might offer some insights from funders' 
>> perceptions.  See http://comm-org.wisc.edu/papers2001/bothwell.htm
>> Bob Bothwell
>>
>> *******************************
>>
>> From: Michelle Renee <mrenee at ucla.edu>
>>
>>
>> Hi Dan,
>>
>> I would check out the work of Research for Action  
>> http://www.researchforaction.org.  They are in your backyard and have 
>> done some fantastic work in collaboration with community organizations.  
>> Another good start is the recent report from the Annenberg Institute for 
>> School Reform-- they developed very interesting indicators of the impact 
>> of community organizing for education reform 
>> http://www.annenberginstitute.org/CIP/ (it can be downloaded from the 
>> left side of the page).
>>
>> Best,
>> Michelle Renee
>> Postdoctoral Fellow
>> UC All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity
>>
>> *******************************
>>
>> From: "Shdaimah, Corey" <CSHDAIMAH at ssw.umaryland.edu>
>>
>>
>> Hi Dan
>> This might may be a bit of a side issue, but one of the concerns coming 
>> out of the push for accountability often involves the benefits and risks 
>> of collaborations between academic researchers and grass roots 
>> advocates.  These collaborations are mandated sometimes by funders or 
>> considered strategically important by advocacy groups. Grass roots 
>> groups may not have existing capacity to do evaluations completely on 
>> their own, and so may have to work with others who do. From the other 
>> side, many academics (myself included) seek work that is relevant and 
>> makes a difference out in the world and so are drawn to collaborative work.
>> I have written a couple of pieces on that with a colleague, Roland 
>> Stahl, on a project that we did with the Women's Community 
>> Revitalization Project in your neck of the woods (Philly).
>>
>> The one most that is most relevant for practice is:
>> Stahl, R., & Shdaimah, C.S., (2007) “Collaboration between community 
>> advocates and academic researchers: Scientific advocacy or political 
>> research” British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcm069
>>
>> David Koppisch and Amy Hillier also did a piece on another 
>> Philadelphia-based collaboration that addresses similar issues.
>> Hillier, A. and Koppisch, D. (2005) ‘Community activists and university 
>> researchers collaborating
>> for affordable housing: Dual perspectives on the experience’, Journal of
>> Poverty, 9(4), pp. 27–48.
>>
>> While I can only hope that someone would consider our work seminal :) I 
>> do believe that both of these articles might provide some reflection and 
>> concrete advice that might be useful.
>>
>> Best
>> Corey
>>
>>
>>
>> Corey Shdaimah, LL.M., Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor
>> Academic Coordinator, MSW/JD Dual Degree Program
>> School of Social Work
>> University of Maryland, Baltimore
>> 525 West Redwood Street
>> Baltimore, Maryland 21201
>> 410-706-7544
>>
>> *****************************************
>>
>> From: Kathy Partridge <interfaithfunders at yahoo.com>
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I want to let Dan and the list know that we at Interfaith Funders are 
>> also interested in doing a thoughtful critique of the "outcomes based" 
>> or "accountability based" or "logic model" of evaluation that seem to be 
>> increasing in popularity amongst grantmakers.  We are both concerned 
>> that the model is not a fit for community organizing and want to present 
>> that concern to our colleagues, but are also wanting to explore how 
>> community organizations can better describe their work using the model.  
>> Dan, I'd be very interested in staying in touch with you about your 
>> research.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Kathy Partridge
>> Executive Director
>> Interfaith Funders
>> www.interfaithfunders.org
>> 2719 Denver Ave.
>> Longmont, CO  80503
>> Voice 720-494-9011
>> Fax 708-585-6434  Cell 303-594-6434
>>  
>> ************************************
>>
>> From:  matt oppenheim <oppenm at earthlink.net>
>>
>>
>> I AM ALSO EAGER TO GAIN NEW KNOWLEDGE IN THIS AREA, ESPECIALLY 
>> UNDERSTANDING HOW PARENT AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IMPACTS ACADEMIC 
>> ACHIEVEMENT.  THERE IS A LARGE BODY OF WORK REGARDING THE IMPACTS OF 
>> PARENT INVOLVEMENT ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT THAT WOULD BE RELEVANT TO 
>> OTHER AREAS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING. FOR EXAMPLE, THERE ARE MANY STUDIES 
>> OF LEADERSHIP AND ITS IMPACTS.  GOOGLE "A NEW WAVE OF EVIDENCE; THE 
>> IMPACTS OF SCHOOL FAMILY AND COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS ON ACADEMIC ACHEIVEMENT"
>>
>> KEEP US POSTED
>>
>>
>> Matt Oppenheim, MAA, PhDc
>> Family Involvement Coordinator
>> Albuquerque Public Schools
>>
>> Discussion list for COMM-ORG wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> --------
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>>> [ed: please feel welcomed to copy COMM-ORG with replies to Dan's query.]
>>>
>>> From: Dan Weinles <DWeinles at gpuac.org>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I am trying to develop a research agenda that seeks to examine 
>>> challenges to grass roots programming / organizations related to the 
>>> growing level of accountability-based funding requirements they are 
>>> facing. Specifically, I would like to detail the barriers that grass 
>>> roots initiatives must overcome in order to gain capacity to effectively 
>>> measure and evaluate the quality and the effects of what they do. The 
>>> end goal would be to develop a set of concrete recommendations to assist 
>>> grass roots organizations in developing evaluative capacity. I am new to 
>>> this area of study and am not familiar with existing research. I was 
>>> hoping that someone out there in the field might be able to direct me to 
>>> any seminal work that has already been done or to the key search words 
>>> or phrases that would be most effective for findings such a body of 
>>> research. Randy Stoecker has already given me some food for thought, 
>>> which I will pursue. I’d like to hear from as many people as have 
>>> knowledge and experience in this area.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for your guidance.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dan Weinles, PhD
>>>
>>> Senior Research Associate
>>>
>>> Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition
>>>
>>> 1207 Chestnut St., #622
>>>
>>> Philadelphia, PA 19107
>>>
>>> Office (215) 851-1986
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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