Using a community-created multisite evaluation to promote evaluation use across a sector.

Area of Science:

• Community-based participatory research
• Program evaluation methodologies
• Knowledge translation and dissemination

Background:

• Multisite evaluations build program knowledge and capacity but often limit data sharing with participants.
• Existing models struggle with equitable data accessibility for individual project stakeholders.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the design and implementation of a community-created multisite evaluation (EvalFest).
• To assess the effectiveness of this model in enhancing evaluation use among partners.
• To overcome limitations in data accessibility inherent in traditional multisite evaluations.

Main Methods:

• Employed a negotiated centralized evaluation model within a community of practice.
• Utilized shared measures to collect data from 30,000 participants across 3 years.
• Focused on the EvalFest community-created multisite evaluation approach.

Main Results:

• The EvalFest model successfully collected data from a large, diverse participant pool.
• Partners reported increased evaluation use, indicating the early success of the community-created approach.
• Demonstrated enhanced data accessibility for individual project participants.

Conclusions:

• The community-created multisite evaluation strategy, exemplified by EvalFest, effectively enhances evaluation use and data sharing.
• This model offers a scalable solution for improving program evaluation in various sectors.
• Future applications may extend this approach beyond its current implementation context.