Putting evaluation capacity building in context: Reflections on the Ontario Brain Institute’s Evaluation Support Program

Toward an Evidence-Based Approach to Building Evaluation Capacity

“…Defining the construct and describing the relevant components of EC has been an ongoing effort for more than two decades (e.g., Compton, Baizerman, Preskill, Rieker, & Miner, 2001 ;Stockdill, Baizerman, & Compton, 2002 ;King, 2020). The goal of building EC is to provide organizations and their members with the necessary skills, resources, and infrastructure to conduct and use credible and meaningful evaluations ( Cousins, Goh, Elliott, & Bourgeois, 2014 ;King, 2020). As straightforward as this may sound, defining, conceptualizing, and measuring EC poses practical challenges ( Cousins et al, 2014 ;Labin, Duffy, Meyers, Wan dersman, & Lesesne, 2012 ;Preskill & Boyle, 2008 ).…”

“…Among these questions, the most important concern the reliabil ity of the existing EC instruments, the validity of the theoretical frameworks proposed, and their transferability to other contexts beyond those for which they were developed ( Cheng & King, 2016 ;Labin, 2014 ). As one way of ad dressing these questions, researchers have called for more robust approaches to conceptualizing and measuring EC ( Gagnon et al, 2018 ;King, 2020). To answer this call, El Hassar's dissertation study focused on providing a bridge between theory, measurement, and practice to specify the individual and organizational components that contribute to building EC in the context of the early childhood development field in Alberta, with the central aim of informing EC evidencebased initiatives.…”

Applying a systems and complexity lens to building evaluation capacity: Learning from a multicountry donor's experience

“…ECB research has increasingly taken on more complex contexts, with recent studies shedding light on the intersection of STCS and ECB. A fundamental tenet of STCS, the inclusion of multiple perspectives, has been discussed in several articles (e.g., King, 2020; Nylen & Sridharan, 2020). Nylen and Sridharan (2020) examined the added value of collaborations and highlighted how knowledge had diffused externally to spread beyond the program's boundaries.…”

“…Although there has been increased literature related to doing STCS‐informed evaluation, there has not been a corresponding increase in literature on how to strengthen participants’ capacity to do STCS‐informed evaluation. The exception includes a small number of recent studies (e.g., King, 2020; Lawrenz et al., 2018; Sridharan & Nakaima, 2020) that have paid significant and purposeful attention to the intersection of STCS and ECB. Consequently, Nakaima and Sridharan (2020) appealed for improved stories of the “dynamics of organizational capacity building from specific case studies of organizations” (p. 3).…”

Evaluation Literacy: Perspectives of Internal Evaluators in Non-Government Organizations

“…Many NGOs depend on multiple grants from insecure funding streams with short-term cycles and need to produce evidence of their performance for multiple audiences (Braverman, 2013;Lee & Nowell, 2015). Disconnects between funders' reporting demands and internal models of practice occur as staff are predominantly focused on service delivery, improving operations and accountability to benefi ciaries (Campbell, Lambright, & Bronstein, 2012;King & Volkov, 2005;Naccarella et al, 2007). However, demonstrating ac countability for funders has become essential for NGO survival in competitive environments (Carman & Fredericks, 2010;Cousins, Goh, Elliott, & Bourgeois, 2014;McCoy, Rose, & Connolly, 2013).…”