AEA Conference TIG Sessions 2021
Walk the Tightrope: Balancing Opportunities and Risk in Evaluation Capacity Building
Evaluation capacity building can empower program staff and be a means for organizations to develop cultures of learning. Capacity building can also be used to stretch limited resources and staff to conduct evaluation activities. But what happens after the initial building blocks are laid? In this roundtable, evaluation leads will share the steps taken to build evaluation capacity among staff at a nonprofit serving Native Hawaiian orphan and destitute youth. The roundtable will include a facilitated discussion around what happens after a culture of learning is established. Guiding questions may include: How to tell if and when is it appropriate for staff to conduct evaluation on their own? How do staff continually integrate evaluation-specific work with programming. Attendees will leave with lessons learned on how to build capacity and what considerations to keep in mind for the next steps.
Presenters: Melinda Lloyd, Sena Sanjines, Penn Pantumsinchai
Friday November 12, 2021 2:30pm-3:15pm
Session Type: Roundtable
Elitism in Evaluation: How young evaluators with diverse backgrounds benefit evaluation teams
As we challenge ourselves to meet the moment, evaluators must re-envision the ways in which we support young evaluators by reassessing the value we place in formal education and corresponding “college to evaluator” degree tracks. Although we cannot change the past, we can greatly improve the future of evaluation by supporting young evaluators. This panel will discuss how our team of young evaluators came to be, managing expectations when working with young evaluators, how to hire evaluators with diverse experiences, why supporting diverse evaluators is beneficial to an organization, and how hiring evaluators with different educational backgrounds improves our processes and products.
Attendees will learn:
- How to adapt the hiring process to recognize relevant evaluation skills from diverse backgrounds
- How unorthodox hiring preferences foster strong team dynamics
- To challenge previous notions of what backgrounds set people up to be skillful evaluators
Presenters: Alyssa Colón, Tracesea Slater, Harper Hill, Miriam Estrada
Tuesday November 9, 2021 2:30pm-3:15pm
Session Type: Panel