We help foundations, large nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and impact investors navigate their most complex measurement challenges. Here's how we've applied StoryScience with a few of our recent partners:
We help foundations, large nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and impact investors navigate their most complex measurement challenges. Here's how we've applied StoryScience with a few of our recent partners:
FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH – MEASURING EFFECTS ON A CITY'S YOUTH
for Children and Youth – Measuring Effects on a City's Youth
The Oakland Fund for Children and Youth is a department within that city's Department of Human Services that provides approximately $10
million annually to community-based organizations serving children, youth, and their families. See Change is responsible for the annual
evaluation of 58 of these programs that collectively provide services and activities to over 12,000 young people in areas ranging from
early childhood education to summer enrichment to youth leadership.Evaluating a myriad of program models in a range of distinct strategy areas calls for a comprehensive and creative measurement approach. In addition to surveys for all program participants, See Change designed a set of methodologies for examining different types of youth and program outcomes. Linking youth surveys to school district data – In partnership with the Oakland Unified School District, See Change uses unique identifiers to match student attendance, behavioral, and academic performance data to youth surveys collected at program sites, and to youth program attendance records.
Assessing program quality – Assessing youth development program quality is a core competency of See Change, and for this project we created two
custom tools for observing and rating the quality of programming, based on the national youth development literature.
Building a digital storybank – While the surveys used in this evaluation are common across all 58 programs, all programs also had an opportunity to work with See Change staff to create digital stories about the outcomes experienced by their participating youth. These short multimedia stories are uploaded to an OFCY "storybank," which can be refreshed with new stories as programs contribute them.
Engaging youth as evaluators – The OFCY charter calls for the active participation of young people in the evaluation process. See Change partnered with a local youth organization to train and manage a group of teens in a youth-led research project, culminating in a short film and written report.
Building a digital storybank – While the surveys used in this evaluation are common across all 58 programs, all programs also had an opportunity to work with See Change staff to create digital stories about the outcomes experienced by their participating youth. These short multimedia stories are uploaded to an OFCY "storybank," which can be refreshed with new stories as programs contribute them.
Engaging youth as evaluators – The OFCY charter calls for the active participation of young people in the evaluation process. See Change partnered with a local youth organization to train and manage a group of teens in a youth-led research project, culminating in a short film and written report.
