EMI Activities Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation:
Evaluation, Assessment, and Capacity Building
(Click here to visit EMI's home page)

Measuring Progress: A New Process for Evaluation

One of the core objectives of our work is to enhance the capacity of collaborative ecosystem initiatives to achieve ecological and social outcomes. Our evaluation framework, Measuring Progress, pulls together a diverse set of ideas drawn from current literature and the experiences of on-the-ground project managers into a compact and useable evaluation workbook. This process involves a multi-metric approach to evaluation. Guidance is provided not only for measuring ecological objectives, but also socioeconomic objectives, as well as issues related to process – how projects make decisions, communicate and carry out activities.
Click here for a brief description of the evaluation process.

Evaluation Resources

A rich evaluation literature highlights a set of indicators and protocols. Many of these indicator systems have been developed to evaluate the outcomes of conservation and sustainable development initiatives. Unfortunately, the ideas in this literature and area of practice have not been adequately connected to the challenges of assessing communicty-based collaboratives. To fill this gap, we have developed working papers that summarize key evaluation approaches and indicators in the ecological, social, and process literatures. We are converting this material into a toolkit to be used in support of the Measuring Progress process. Our evaluation resources webpage provides links to a variety of evaluation web material.

Longitudinal Study of Ecosystem Management Projects

Over the last decade, EMI has built a longitudinal dataset to track the progress of ecosystem management projects across the country. We surveyed over 100 collaborative ecosystem initiatives in the United States in 1995 and again in 1999. With Hewlett Foundation funding we continued this study in 2003 with a web-based survey of 76 of the original projects, as well as 15 new cases. This study allows us to draw conclusions about changes over time in project goals, strategies, outcomes, and the factors that facilitate and obstruct progress. We can also explore how project structure and evaluation activities relate to project effectiveness.

• View the 1995 and 1999 reports or see a summary of the results and implications of these studies.
• Read a more detailed description of this work.

Capacity-Building for Practitioners

• EMI has developed a training approach to present the Measuring Progress evaluation process. In November 2003, eighteen Resources for Community Collaboration grantees gathered in Bozeman, Montana for a two-day evaluation workshop. EMI is continuing to work with RCC funded projects on-site to enhance their capacity to undertake this process and is interested in working with other sites in North America. If you are interested in learning more about this training, click here.
  

• EMI developed a two-day workshop focused on collaboration, negotiation and strategic assessment skills for environmental NGOs. This course entitled Collaboration Skills & Strategies: A Workshop for Environmental Leaders was piloted with 30 environmental NGO representatives in Denver, Colorado in May 2001.