| Session Title: Using Logic Models to Build Evaluation Capacity at the Community Level: Enhancing Program Effectiveness by Building Evaluation Skills Among Community Coalitions |
| Demonstration Session 840 to be held in PRESIDIO B on Saturday, Nov 13, 1:40 PM to 2:25 PM |
| Sponsored by the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Tiffany Comer Cook, University of Wyoming, tcomer@uwyo.edu |
| Laura Feldman, University of Wyoming, lfeldman@uwyo.edu |
| Abstract: In this demonstration, presenters will illustrate a step-by-step process for successfully building the evaluation capacity of community coalitions. The presenters will offer examples from a pilot project conducted with tobacco prevention and control programs. Evaluators worked with local coalitions to help them transform their strategic plans into logic models and then to use their logic models as guides for identifying ways to improve and direct program impact and, consequently, their progress in achieving project goals. The coalitions learned how to use logic models to link activities, outputs, and outcomes and to inform the documentation of the short- and long-term impacts of day-to-day activities. They also learned to collect data purposefully, to track informative outputs, and to gather easily available evidence of program impact. The presentation will also focus on the lessons learned in implementing this approach to improve both evaluation capacity and evaluation utility. |