| by Simone Parrish, Knowledge Manager, Innovation
Network, Inc.
Defining Success
Part Five
(Johanna Gladfelter, Ehren Reed, and Lily Zandniapour contributed
to this article.)
Social change is a long-term process, so how can short-term
success be measured? Remember Susan B. Anthony: She didn't
live to see women get the vote, but that doesn't mean she
wasn't an effective advocate!
The previous article in this series provided several examples
of successful advocacy evaluations, but some of you may be
wondering how to begin an advocacy evaluation. In Innovation
Network's curriculum for advocacy evaluation training (not
yet publicly available), we discuss four basic steps necessary
to defining and evaluating the incremental success of your
advocacy campaign:
- Identify your scope
- Clarify your approach
- Make an Outcomes Chain
- Ask the right questions
Identify Your Scope
The scope is the change you want to achieve. To
define incremental success in pursuing change, you need a
clear vision of what long-term success looks like. Ask yourself
the following questions:
- So what? What impact are you trying
to achieve?
- Where will change take place (e.g.,
in a region, a community, or a sphere of influence)? (See
Figure 3 from Part 3 of this series, below.)
- Who are the key players? (See the third
paragraph of Part 3 for a description of key players.)
- What changes are expected to occur?
- When will those changes take place?
Clarify Your Approach
Your approach describes how your organization will go about
creating, or contributing to, the change identified in your
scope.
- Who are your targets?
- How will you bring about desired changes?
- Why do you believe change should/will
happen in this way?
These questions may seem basic, but they help ensure everyone
in your organization or coalition is working toward the same
change. Answering them clearly will give you a framework
for monitoring and evaluating your work.
Make an Outcomes Chain
To make the "what" and "when" of your scope more concrete,
it's helpful to place them in an Outcomes Chain (see Appendix
1). The incremental successes spring from your shorter-term
and intermediate outcomes. See below for some samples.
Ask the Right Questions
Advocacy work isn't pass/fail. An evaluation of your work
should not focus on your ultimate goal ("Did we achieve worldwide
social justice?"), but on the here-and-now activities that
move you toward that goal. Incremental successes can be identified
for many aspects of your organization's work: infrastructure,
coalition and network building, communications and public
education, research, community organizing, and more.
Samples and Resources
We have included a selection of samples to help illustrate
some the methods you can use for evaluating your advocacy
campaign.
Sample Outcomes Chains
This sample Outcomes
Chain represents a fictional advocacy campaign.
Appendix
1 offers two real-life examples of Outcomes Chains.
Sample Outcomes Categories
Organizational Research Service's report, "A
Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy," contains a
section on outcomes categorization for advocacy efforts
(pp. 17-19).
Data Collection Samples
- Appendix 2 describes the Intense
Period Debrief, a data collection tool developed
by Innovation Network. The activity level of advocacy
work tends to have strong peaks and lulls. Collecting
data tends to fall to the bottom of the "to-do" list
when activity is at its most intense-which can result
in the loss of valuable program information. The Intense
Period Debrief was designed to capture information from
an activity peak without interfering with the work.
Sample Evaluation Questions
These sample
questions can help you think about how to start measuring
your advocacy efforts. Data collection to answer these
kinds of questions can be as simple as:
- Counting your communications with Key Players (How often
do you contact them? How often do they contact you?);
- Tracking the number of times your issue is mentioned
in the news (Google
Alerts can help with this) or in blogs (using an aggregator
or a feed like the Bloglines
Search); or,
- Comparing infrastructure documents (e.g., an old procedures
manual vs. a new one).
Creating social change is an ongoing process, and takes
place in a complex environment. It may not always be possible
to say what causes a particular change. It is possible - and,
we believe, crucial - to measure your work and use what you
learn to adjust your approach. We hope this series will help
you get started.
If you have additional questions about how to get started
conducting an evaluation of your organization's advocacy,
please visit Innovation Network's website or
contact Simone.
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