Evaluation Tools
It is always a bright idea to measure and tracks one’s progress in achieving one’s goals.
Here are a variety of helpful tools to aid in evaluation processes.
Organizational Self-Assessment
Self-Assessment Tool for Nonprofit Organizations
Developed by the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, this tool helps nonprofits review such areas as their board governance, planning processes, and financial and staff management.
Organizational Self-Assessment Checklist
For nonprofits in the arts field, the National Endowment for the Arts has produced this assessment tool.
How Are We Doing? An Organizational Self-Assessment Tool for Faith-Based Organizations
This toolkit is designed for directors of faith-based organizations who wish to lead their staff, board, and/or volunteers through an intentional process of internal self-assessment.
This evaluation system assists organization leaders and stakeholders in assessing whether their programs and policies are “on track” with their mission and philosophy of ministry. It works especially well for day-long or weekend Board or staff retreats.
Outcomes-Based Evaluation
Building a Common Outcome Framework to Measure Nonprofit Performance
The Urban Institute and the Center for What Works teamed up to publish this white paper on OBE for nonprofits.
Basic Guide to OBE for Nonprofit Organizations with Very Limited Resources
As the title suggests, the report is helpful for small organizations. It walks leaders through the basic 6 steps of OBE.
Outcomes-Based Evaluation: A Training Toolkit for Programs of Faith
This primer will help FBO leaders understand the basics of outcome-based evaluation (OBE), its uses and benefits.
This comprehensive, step-by-step tutorial guides program directors through a logical process of identifying program goals, establishing measurement indicators, and collecting data to determine how successful the program was in achieving its targets.
The toolkit focuses on a hypothetical example that can be adapted to assess real-life programs. It includes worksheets and forms FBOs can use to plan their own evaluation process.
Implementing Outcomes Based Assessment of Student Learning
By Dr. Marilee Bresciani, this paper walks educators through the OBE process for measuring student learning.
Measures of Resiliency/Strengths-Based Assessments
Overview of Measuring Instruments
In his well-received book, How Children Succeed, author Paul Tough argues that noncognitive skills, like persistence, self-control, curiosity, conscientiousness, grit and self-confidence, are more crucial than sheer brainpower to achieving success. Others have argued similarly for the importance of resiliency in adults. Several assessment tools have been development to try to gauge people’s resiliency.
For a helpful review of a number of assessment instruments available for use with children, youth, and adults, see “Compendium of Selected Resilience and Related Measures for Children and Youth” by Dr. Darlene Kordich Hall.
The Resilience Scale™
The Resilience Scale measures one’s capacity to live a full and rewarding life by seeing how resilient you are.
The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale
This is most often used by healthcare providers serving patients suffering from PTSD or other mental health issues. The original version of the scale and a modified version of the questionnaire are found on page 14 of the journal article “A Modified CD-RISC: Including Previously Unaccounted for Resilience Variables” by Frank Dong et. al.
Resiliency: Assessing Developmental Strengths (RADS)
For information on this assessment tool contact the Canadian organization, Resiliency Initiatives.
The Search Institute: 40 Developmental Assets
The veteran Search Institute has spent decades seeking to answer the query, What helps children and youth thrive? It has developed the Developmental Assets model, which is now widely used by secular and faith-based youth organizations. The Asset questionnaires are organized by age group.
Program-Specific Evaluation Tools
FASTEN’s Toolkits
FASTEN, one of the worldwide web’s largest online clearinghouses for educational materials for FBOs and CBOs engaged in community renewal, offers a variety of program-specific toolkits that include assessment tools:
Tutoring Toolkit
Youth Leadership Development Toolkit
Substance Abuse Prevention Toolkit
Teen Vocational Development Toolkit
Ex-Offender Reentry Programs Toolkit