| Evaluation
We provide excellent, timely, useful, client-centered research
and program evaluation. We make use of a wide range of evaluation
methods to answer our clients’ important questions, help them make
decisions and improve their programs. We have worked with a diverse
array of public and private-sector clients, including Foundations,
non-profit agencies, universities and schools. Many of our clients
have been clients for years.
Diane Morehouse and Consultant Stacey Stockdill are currently at work
on two large Northwest Area Foundation evaluations.
In the Connections evaluation, we are helping our clients track the
processes of marketing and diffusing tools, models and strategies for
helping communities reduce poverty in the Foundation’s eight-state service
area. Products range from models to build family wealth to metrics to help
communities judge the value of job creation efforts.
In the Horizons program evaluation, we are working with a number of colleagues
and consultants to conduct, among other methods, a multi-year Panel Study of
several hundred participants in community leadership development and poverty
reduction programs. We will be conducting repeated interviews with 200 panel
members as they experience the program over a two-year period.
Our evaluation work often involves methods such as focus groups.
In one large project, Diane Morehouse and Consultant Carol McGee Johnson
conducted focus groups with nearly 200, highly diverse, parents of teenagers
in the Twin Cities (Mpls. and St. Paul) metro area. We also
conducted interviews with experts and parent surveys. The result
of our work is a large scale public information campaign for parents
designed around the competencies, needs and skills we identified
for our clients.
Also in the Twin Cities, a public information campaign aimed at preventing binge
drinking among college-aged women was developed from focus group data provided by
QED. This work has been a model for other state coalitions.
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A Few of Our Evaluation Clients:
- The Ford Foundation (News Media and Culture)
- The Northwest Area Foundation
- Minnesota Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (MOFAS)
- The Minneapolis Foundation
- The Saint Paul Foundation
- The Blandin Foundation
- Hennepin County Department of Health (and seven collaborators)
- Community Employment Partnership
- RS Eden Women’s Programs
- MN Department of Health - Center for Health Promotion
- The Minnesota Futures Fund
- National Urban Alliance (Columbia University)
- Regent Candidate Advisory Council
- East Metro Community Health Network
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
- Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
- Minnesota Department of Education
- Children’s Defense Fund
- Council of Chief State School Officers
- Minnesota Extension Service/Telecommunications Development Center
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