Collecting data through community surveys, focus groups and observational research helps us evaluate the effectiveness of our programs.
In the last year, Joanna Peluso, Healthier Jupiter’s outreach coordinator, has guided the development of several large community surveys and spearheaded collection efforts. She has gathered hundreds of responses from individuals who live and work here in Jupiter.
After overseeing the collection of responses for El Sol’s annual client survey, Joanna analyzed the data and used infographics to present findings in a comprehensive report.
Today, she reflected on her experiences and gave us advice for continuing with program evaluations in the future.
Joanna reminded us of the importance of both quantitative data, such as graduation and job placement rates, and qualitative data, such as success stories and detailed responses to open-ended questions.
Want to explore program evaluation? Here are a few resources Joanna shared with us:
- Program Evaluation Guide from the Northwest Center for Public Health Practice:
https://www.nwcphp.org/docs/data_collection/data_collection_toolkit.pdf
- AmeriCorps Evaluation Resources
https://www.nationalservice.gov/resources/evaluation
- The American Evaluation Association’s Blog:
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Survey Fundamentals:
https://oqi.wisc.edu/resourcelibrary/uploads/resources/Survey_Guide.pdf
- Infographics
https://easel.ly/blog/crashcourseinfographics
https://www.classy.org/blog/create-infographics-nonprofit-marketing-campaigns/
- Likert Scales
http://www.marquette.edu/dsa/assessment/documents/Sample-Likert-Scales.pdf
- Storytelling