Guest post by Dayna Albert
We did it! EvalPartners and the International Organisation for Cooperation in Evaluation (IOCE) have awarded a consortium of five Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs), led by Burt Perrin of the European Evaluation Society (EES) and Rochelle Zorzi of the Canadian Evaluation Society (CES), to explore the value of evaluation by soliciting and collecting stories from around the world of evaluations that have made a difference. The collection of stories will be released in 2015, to correspond with the International Year of Evaluation.
For more information about the project, please see summary below and/or as Project Coordinator, you are most welcome to connect with Dayna Albert at: daynaalbert@rogers.com.
Project Summary
Stories are a powerful way of communicating information and ideas. They engage us both emotionally and intellectually. Most writing about evaluation is published in academic journals, which can be unpalatable (and sometimes inaccessible) to policy makers. In contrast, we all intuitively understand and remember stories.
Project Purpose:
- To publish a collection of short stories from around the world about evaluations that have made a difference
- To use elements of effective storytelling to engage readers and capture multiple perspectives, including policy-makers, evaluators and other stakeholders
- To conduct an analysis of factors that contributed to making the evaluations useful, yielding insights about the “enablers” of a valuable evaluation
Potential for Impact: Improve demand and use of evaluation by policy makers. It is our hope that the collection of stories will improve demand for evaluation by improving policy makers’ understanding of evaluation, and fostering more positive attitudes toward evaluation. It is possible that some of the stories will more directly inspire policy makers to use evaluation. We expect this to represent a useful tool to support the demand side of evaluation. It is also our intent that the cross-case analysis will improve the quality and impact of evaluations by identifying key enablers to high-value evaluations. As the value of evaluations improves, the demand and use of evaluation should increase.
Project Activities:
- The Call for Stories will be launched internationally in early 2014.
- Local Review Teams will select the winning stories.
- The collection of stories will be disseminated in language of submission and translated into English during EvalYear 2015.
- A web platform will be created to allow access to all project materials, including the stories, project templates to encourage the collection and dissemination of more stories
Opportunities to Get Involved:
- Volunteer to be a member of a local Story Review Team.
- Contact Dayna (daynaalbert@rogers.com) to direct you to a regional lead
- Promote the Call for Stories and / or rally a team to submit a story of an evaluation that ‘Made a Difference’