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The Kellogg Foundation conducted a scan of 55 organizations engaged in change-oriented leadership programs, with the purpose of mapping the terrain of outcomes and results of this type of activity. The report documents the state of change-oriented leadership development across these 55 organizations by using a series of key outcomes and impacts.
Key findings of the report include:
§ Organizations reported increased demands upon them to show outcomes and impact
§ Few leadership programs have a developed theory of change linking their activities to short and long-term outcomes, or impact of
§ The link between leadership development of individuals and the impact of those individuals on organizations and communities is not well understood
§ Short-term outcomes are often available when evaluations are being conducted and are therefore more frequently evaluated than are long-term outcomes
§ Lack of resources for evaluation of long-term outcomes and impact is the most common reason for not undertaking these types of evaluation.
Although the publication does not explicitly discuss community organizing, its definition of change-oriented leadership suggests the type of leadership development and constituent empowerment that are central to most organizing initiatives. Therefore, these evaluation findings can be useful for community organizing groups engaged in leadership development activities.
The report highlights areas for prospective planning and retrospective evaluation for practitioners. Additionally, groups interested in evaluating organizing may find this case study a useful model for identifying the results of the leadership development aspects of organizing.
As part of the report, the authors include as appendices the questions and indicators they used to evaluate leadership development outcomes in the following categories:
§ Individual Outcomes (e.g. individual increases in ability to mobilize public will, or in cultural competence)
§ Organizational Outcomes (e.g. development of new leadership, strengthening of existing programmatic work)
§ Community Outcomes (e.g. increased resident engagement, increased trust among community members)
§ Field Outcomes (e.g. increased involvement of underrepresented groups in the work, whether leaders in the field are thinking systematically about the work)
§ Systemic Impact Outcomes (e.g. changes in national dialogue about leadership, impact on policies)
These questions and indicators may be particularly useful to those interested in evaluating the impact of leadership development work within the communityorganizing field. |