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Mission Statement

The Advocacy and Policy Change Topical Interest Group exists to provide a forum for communication, learning, mutual support and professional development for those interested in evaluating broadly defined advocacy and policy activities.  The Advocacy and Policy Change Topical Interest Group (TIG) within the American Evaluation Association (AEA) was launched in 2007 and is now the second-fastest-growing TIG, with over 800 members and a steady growth in the presentations allotted to it at AEA’s annual meetings.

Some of our many areas of interest include:

  • Methodology for evaluating within the complexities of the policy environment
  • Inter-governmental, national (for all countries), state and local advocacy and policy activities
  • Specific approaches for discrete advocacy activities (community organizing, media outreach, coalition and network building, lobbying, legal action, research, etc.)

We've provided a list of useful links on our Resource page (click on the 'Resources' tab above).

From the aea365 Tip-A-Day blog

LGBT Week: Cary Johnson and Efrain Gutierrez on Evaluating Advocacy Efforts to Promote LGBT Human Rights Around the World
2/9/2012 3:48:54 AM

APC Week: Ehren Reed on Useful Resources for Advocacy Evaluation
1/13/2012 3:37:30 AM

APC Week: Tayo Fabusuyi on the need for a Community of Practice on Advocacy Evaluation
1/12/2012 3:34:13 AM

APC Week: Anna Williams on When is a policy “win” real? Why does this matter when evaluating policy advocacy?
1/11/2012 3:25:22 AM

APC Week: Gabrielle Watson on Internal Utilization of External Evaluations
1/10/2012 3:08:13 AM

Upcoming Events

Get Ready for 2012 AEA Conference
Submit your Ideas! It's already time to start thinking about the 2012 AEA conferenece, October 24-27, 2012.  Session proposals for the American Evaluation Association's conference in Anaheim, CA, USA are due by Friday, March 16 by midnight of U.S. Eastern time.  The 2012 conference theme is "Evaluation in Complex Ecologies: Relationships, Responsibilities, Relevance."

If you have session ideas related to advocacy and policy change evaluation, please think about submitting them through our TIG.  There are several session types to fit your topic, including demonstration, think tank, panel discussion, expert lecture, and more.  If you think you might be interested in proposing a session, be sure to review the proposal guidelines at http://www.eval.org/eval2012/12proposals.htm.

 

Volunteers Needed! We need volunteers to help review AEA conference proposals that come in through our TIG.  It is a short-term commitment during the month of April and it will not require much of your time (probably less than an hour).

Volunteers will conduct a blind review of several proposals based on a set of predetermined criteria.  If you're interested, please contact Jenifer Cartland.

Welcome to new Volunteer TIG Leaders
Our TIG has two new Co-Program Chairs who will be working with Jenifer Cartland (Program Chair) to pull the 2012 APC TIG conference program together -- Jewlya Lynn (Spark Policy Institute) and Anna Williams (Ross & Associates Environmental Consulting, Ltd.).  Welcome Jewlya and Anna and thanks for your commitment!

We're LIVE!  Participate in the Advocacy and Policy Change e-group!
Per the request at the business meeting, our e-group is up and running.  The e-group is accessible using the navigation bars at the top of our TIG website.  We encourage folks to post questions, ideas and information through the e-group.

Comments on the Website
Suggestions for improving the Advocacy and Policy TIG website can be sent to the webmaster.