Program and Policy Evaluations in Practice: Highlights from the Federal Perspective

Maynard, Rebecca; Goldstein, Naomi E. S.; Nightingale, Demetra Smith

doi:10.1002/ev.20209

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(33 reference statements)

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“…The federal government spends more than US$600 billion per year on grants to state and local governments, educational institutions, and nonprofits to fund a wide range of social services, education, and health-care programs (Government Accountability Office [GAO], 2016). Evidence generated through evaluations of these dispersed efforts can be very important for responsible oversight of federal resources and allocation of funding (Maynard, Goldstein, & Nightingale, 2016). Indeed, within a broad climate of tightening public resources, there is growing interest in and demand for evidence-based solutions to pressing social problems (Haskins & Margolis, 2014; Nussle & Orszag, 2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Lessons From the Social Innovation Fund

Zandniapour

2017

American Journal of Evaluation

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Tiered evidence initiatives are an important federal strategy to incentivize and accelerate the use of rigorous evidence in planning, implementing, and assessing social service investments. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, adopted a public–private partnership approach to tiered evidence. What was learned from implementing this ambitious program? How can large funding initiatives promote evaluation capacity in smaller organizations and evidence building in a sector broadly, increasing knowledge about how to address important social problems? And what can evaluators and evaluation technical assistance providers not working within a tiered evidence framework learn from the SIF? We provide an overview of the SIF model and describe how the fund operationalized “evidence building.” Materials developed to support SIF grantees represent practical, best practice strategies for successfully completing rigorous, relevant evaluations. Key lessons from overseeing over 130 evaluations—and their utility for other local evaluators—are discussed.

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confidence: 99%

Lessons From the Social Innovation Fund

Zandniapour

2017

American Journal of Evaluation

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“…Today, branches of federal agencies—such as the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in ED, the National Commission on Families in HHS, and the Employment and Training Administration in DOL—support many evidence clearinghouses. Several others operate outside of government, such as the Campbell Collaboration and Results First (Maynard, Goldstein, and Smith Nightingale 2016).…”

Section: Infrastructure To Support the Evidence-based Policy Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Federal Agencies in Creating and Administering Evidence-Based Policies

Maynard¹

2018

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Scie

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The success of federal agencies in creating and using evidence-based policies hinges on (1) their commitment to include routine use of evidence—including research and program evaluations—in program design and funding decisions and (2) their capacity to adapt their operating practices accordingly. The recent push toward using evidence more deliberately in government meant that federal agencies needed to quickly improve the accessibility of existing evidence. They also had to foster internal capacity to fairly judge its quality and applicability; build capacity and support for routinely using evidence within program and policy offices to support policy development and monitoring; and create a consensus within agencies around sensible ways to categorize, rate, and apply evidence. Common evidence standards, open access to evidence review platforms, and mandates for embedding rigorous evaluations into funded programs are among the most influential tools agencies have used in this new era of evidence-based policymaking.

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“…Several departments, such as the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the U.S. Department of Education, and the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), already had evaluation, research, and evidence‐based structures. The procedures and operational details varied across agencies, each with approaches that had developed and evolved over several decades (Haskins & Margolis, 2014; Maynard et al, 2016).…”

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Putting it all together: The case of the U.S. Department of Labor's evidence‐building strategy

Irwin

Nightingale

2022

New Drctns Evaluation

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This chapter describes how and why the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) structured and implemented a comprehensive evidence‐building strategy in the years ahead of the federal legislation that now requires many of the same key components. In 2010, the Chief Evaluation Office was established in DOL at the departmental level to coordinate evaluation strategy and evidence building and to promote an organization‐wide culture of learning. This represented a new approach intended to elevate the priority on evidence, improve the scope and quality of evaluations and research, and expand the use of evidence. The DOL strategy included formalizing a departmental evaluation policy statement around key principles that govern high‐quality evaluations, developing a learning agenda process to strategically plan for evaluations and evidence‐building activities, and creating an evidence‐based clearinghouse to synthesize and share the results of rigorous evaluations. While each department is unique, DOL's experience highlights functions that were prioritized as well as challenges and limitations that had to be addressed in one department.

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Program and Policy Evaluations in Practice: Highlights from the Federal Perspective

Cited by 7 publications

References 35 publications

Lessons From the Social Innovation Fund

Lessons From the Social Innovation Fund

The Role of Federal Agencies in Creating and Administering Evidence-Based Policies

Putting it all together: The case of the U.S. Department of Labor's evidence‐building strategy

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