Last week saw me in the Big Smoke for a family event. It was great to reconnect with relatives and friends, but as always with travel, it’s nice to come back home. This week’s Seeds (loosely) follows that theme of home, whether it falls under developments in my geographic neighbourhood or what constitutes a professional […]
Category: Seeds for Thought
Volunteers are an important piece of the puzzle for any non-profit organization. Whether they’re contributing to programs and special events, helping out with fundraising and outreach, or providing guidance and leadership as members of the board, good volunteers are indispensable. As these individuals are giving their time and effort without compensation (at least of the […]
This week’s seed features Chi Yan Lam, a friend and colleague who is completing his PhD in Education at Queen’s University. We share an interest in developmental and collaborative approaches to evaluation, though as you can see from his about page, he comes at it more from the academic and theoretical side. In support of […]
Earlier this year, I wrote a post on simply counting as an easy way to start evaluating a program or initiative. Although this approach can provide some good insights, numbers can easily mislead based on the manner of collection or when viewed in isolation from the broader context, as this week’s two seeds for thought […]
Ever have the experience where you read a blog post or article online and immediately say “That captures my thoughts perfectly! Why didn’t I write that?”. This week the honour goes to my friend and colleague Natalie Brown Kivell of Common Thread Consulting, specifically her post making the case for the humble strategic plan. Contrasting […]
Whether you are evaluator of a program or someone associated with the initiative being evaluted (the evaluatee?), it’s probably safe to say that everyone hopes for good results: proof that all the planning, effort, and resources that went into the program made a difference. Sadly, that doesn’t always happen, leaving the evaluator to figure out […]
If you follow Strong Roots’ Twitter feed, you may have noticed that I attended the MoSo conference last week here in Saskatoon. It was my first time attending this particular conference but hopefully it won’t be my last, with some great sessions and resources that were relevant to me as both a social entrepreneur and […]
Categories
Seeds for Thought: Scale
Today’s Seed for Thought comes from the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s blog, a site that covers (as the name suggests) social innovation and related conepts like philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and nonprofit organizational development. In the latter category, an article today provided a five-question checklist for nonprofits to assess their readiness to scale and increase their […]
“I don’t care about the details, just tell me what impact you had!” The impact of interventions that deal with complex social issues often can’t be boiled down to a simple yay/nay vote, especially when examining longer-term outcomes: unfortunately, explaining that fact to stakeholders and funders without seeming evasive can be difficult. Chris Lysy over […]
Categories
Seeds for Thought: Big Data
During the span of a week, I come across lots of interesting stories, resources, and sites online that may be of interest to those in the non-profit-sector. In line with my approach of connecting people with resources and sharing information, I’m thinking about starting a weekly feature to highlight some of those links – consider […]