Building Evaluation Capacity in Youth-Serving Organizations Through Evaluation Advisory Boards

Abstract

Youth-serving organizations seek effective and cost-efficient solutions to build evidence and advance their impact. Some common challenges include choosing data systems or assessments, budgeting and planning for 3rd-party studies, and refining measurement and outcomes when programs expand or change. Evaluation advisory boards (EABs) are a low-cost solution to add evaluation capacity and can be mutually beneficial to both youth-serving organizations and evaluation experts. Previous research suggests that EABs may encourage meaningful use of data, support internal evaluators, and/or facilitate difficult conversations among stakeholders. However, there are very few examples of successful EABs in practice. This paper shares the perspectives of EAB members and organizational evaluation leaders from a large national after-school program, After-School All-Stars (ASAS), including (a) a description of the benefits of EABs, (b) how EABs may be especially helpful with the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (c) examples of youth-serving organizations’ EABs. The experiences and lessons learned by ASAS and its EAB are generalizable to other non-profit youth development programs. Recommendations for structuring EABs based on organizational goals are provided.

Dynamics and trends in the implementation of regional youth policy in Kazakhstan (on the example of the Karaganda region)

“…Most of the young citizens, especially in the city, grew up in the conditions of the country's relative prosperity and political stability. In addition, this category of citizens grows and is brought up in the context of the rapid digital transformation of the republic, the spread of the Internet and the widespread penetration of numerous social networks into their daily life (GARST, 2021).…”