The Group Health Community Foundation’s evaluation team is a national leader in the evaluation of community-based health promotion programs. For the past 15 years, the evaluation team has been at the forefront in developing new methods for evaluating community-based programs. We have designed and conducted many large-scale evaluations of multi-site initiatives.
The following principles guide our evaluation work:
A collaborative approach
We work closely with funders and the people charged with designing and implementing the programs being evaluated. Regular dialogue with program stakeholders results in evaluations that all parties understand and endorse.
Formative feedback
We believe that evaluators should share findings with program stakeholders at a very early stage and at regular, frequent intervals. This allows stakeholders to use the results to improve decision-making and program operations.
Focusing on immediate outcomes
Community-level interventions may take years to achieve measurable improvements in conventional health-status measures. Our evaluation approach emphasizes intermediate outcomes such as the formation of coalitions, and program and policy development, while at the same time establishing systematic methods to track changes in long-term health outcomes.