Grants Program Analysis Working Group [Call, November 29, 2018]

The Grants Program Analysis Working Group hosted a very productive call on November 29. We’d like to provide you with a few highlights from the call, to keep you updated on what the group is up to. We also encourage anyone interested in this group to join us! If you are interested in joining, please just let one of us, or Annette, know!

On the most recent call, we heard from each of the subgroups about their activities:

• The Survey-based evaluation group is working very hard to collect sample surveys and additional information to assist them in building a comprehensive working catalog of important questions that can reveal insights into the effectiveness and impact of a grants program. The goal of this catalog is to provide a tool that the membership could use to generate their own surveys to measure grantee productivity and growth after the grant term has ended. This group is hoping to acquire more of these surveys to add to the catalog, so if you have any survey questions you can share, please add them to the working folder for this group!
• The Tools to Facilitate Evaluation group is currently research different tools that members can use to assist in their evaluation efforts; this group is also seeking feedback from others who have opinions or suggestions on useful tools. Visit the working folder to provide feedback on a tool or add a tool you think is/could be useful for the toolkit. Stay tuned for more information from this group!
• The Platform-based Evaluation group has also started compiling several different resources to obtain a better understanding of what platforms are available for evaluation, including pros and cons for each of these platforms. Their goal is to create a comprehensive spreadsheet that outlines these different platforms. They also hope to host a webinar in the coming months to feature one of these platforms, including real-world examples of how they can be used. If you have any information you’d like to share about platforms you’ve used, please add it to the working folder for this group!

The group also had a discussion about potentially hosting a breakout session at the next HRA Members’ Meeting in Atlanta (March 28-29). We hope you’ll be able to attend!

There are more detailed notes from the call in the Google Doc, so we encourage you to visit this to learn more about what we discussed.

Thanks to all the working group members for all of your hard work! We’re very excited for a productive year ahead!