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Session Title: Advocacy Capacity Nuance: Helpful, or Too Much? Considering the Cases of Assessing Coalitions Versus Networks and Grassroots Mobilization Versus Community Organizing
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Panel Session 332 to be held in BOWIE C on Thursday, Nov 11, 3:35 PM to 4:20 PM
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Sponsored by the Advocacy and Policy Change TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Astrid Hendricks, California Endowment, ahendricks@calendow.org
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| Discussant(s):
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| Astrid Hendricks, California Endowment, ahendricks@calendow.org
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| Abstract:
As advocacy evaluation has advanced over the last few years, important nuances have evolved relevant to evaluating different types of advocacy organizations and the work they do. At what point do the nuances contribute and at what point do they lose their value to either the evaluator or the practitioner? This session will explore new work conducted in the area of assessing advocacy capacity using a comparative lens to try and unpack and discuss the relevance of nuance associated with two important advocacy capacity elements: Coalitions vs. Networks and Advocacy vs. Community Organizing. Jared Raynor of the TCC Group and Sue Hoechstetter of Alliance for Justice will discuss relevant new resources available to the field on the topics, including evaluating coalitions and frameworks for evaluating community organizing. Participants will be invited to comment and ask questions related to the presentations and their own experience dealing with these nuances.
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You Say Network, I Say Coalition: What is the Difference and Why Should Evaluators Care?
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| Jared Raynor, TCC Group, jraynor@tccgrp.com
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Jared Raynor of TCC Group has played a leading role in articulating and evaluating advocacy capacity. Building on previous work, he has recently focused on coalitions and variant forms of cooperative arrangements. This presentation will respond to the need of evaluators to continue to seek approaches for assessing the capacity of networks and coalitions that do advocacy work by presenting observations, findings, and examples related to how networks and coalitions overlap and differ in their assessment needs. His analysis is grounded in both academic review and practical experience and a recent publication captures critical aspects of evaluating coalitions and coalition work. The presentation will also explore the practicalities of nuancing/segmenting collaborative forms and engage the difficult question of when does the practical value dissolve.
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You Say Power, I Say Influence: How Helpful Is It to Link or Separate Community Organizing and Advocacy Evaluation Approaches?
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| Susan Hoechstetter, Alliance for Justice, sue@afj.org
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Sue Hoechstetter, an early leader in developing advocacy evaluation and capacity assessment as well as community organizing evaluation and capacity assessment, approaches and tools continues to explore these areas. In addition to developing and providing ongoing updates to the web site, Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing, Sue has recently developed a working draft of a community organizing capacity assessment tool. Her work has uncovered the varying perceptions of overlaps and differences between advocacy and community organizing work, and the impact of those perceptions. She will present a comparison and analysis of advocacy and community organizing capacity assessment, including her new community organizing capacity assessment framework, and encourage participants to question and comment on all of the material.
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