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Session Title: Evaluating Volunteering in Low-income Communities: A Participatory Approach

Panel Session 319 to be held in D'Alesandro Room on Thursday, November 8, 9:35 AM to 11:05 AM

Sponsored by the Non-profit and Foundations Evaluation TIG

Chair(s):

Deborah payday loan  Levy payday loan ,  Points of Light Foundation,  dlevy@pointsoflight.org

Abstract: The Points of Light Foundation practices a family strengthening approach that is rooted in the opportunities that volunteering presents to strengthen vulnerable families and communities. One strategy used for increasing family strengthening ideas, is to engage residents in low-income communities to volunteer. Referred to as "neighboring," this strategy focuses on enabling and empowering residents of low-income communities to contribute their time and talent to address critical needs in their community. Over the years, POLF has distributed funds to Volunteer Centers across the country to engage in a variety of "Neighboring" projects. POLF has evaluated the process and impact on the communities served; however in the past two years, has moved to a participatory approach in which all grantees are required to collect their own data and submit them to POLF for analysis. Simultaneously, POLF conducts an overall process and outcomes evaluation using its own data collection methods.

Overview of the Neighboring Concept and the Family Strengthening and Neighborhood Transformation Grant Polina payday loan  Mackievsky payday loan ,  Points of Light Foundation,  pmackievsky@pointsoflight.org This presentation will provide the audience with a description of the concept of Neighboring, the overall project that the Points of Light Foundation is funded to do and is funding the Volunteer Centers for, as well as the selection of sites and challenges that arose along the way. Additionally, she will provide the history of the project and why she believes this new evaluation process has proved successful.

Evaluating Multi-site Grant Funded Projects, A Participatory Approach Deborah payday loan  Levy payday loan ,  Points of Light Foundation,  dlevy@pointsoflight.org The lead evaluator will present the entire process from start to finish that engaged the grantees to create their own evaluation plans and collect their own data. In addition, she will present her own evaluation plan of the grant and how all of the data feeds into one evaluation system. Successes and challenges along the way will be presented and used for a discussion with the audience.

A Grantee Perspective Deborah payday loan  Levy payday loan ,  Points of Light Foundation,  dlevy@pointsoflight.org Participant three will describe the project that was conducted as well as the evaluation plan that was created. Additionally, information regarding the successes and challenges of the evaluation process will be provided, along with a comparison of other grant projects and different evaluation-related expectations. Finally, preliminary findings related to the individual site will be provided.