Department of Urban Affairs & Planning, Virginia Tech, in conjunction with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency

 Publication Information:

http://www.uap.vt.edu/checkyoursuccess/manual.html

N/A

This resource sets out reasons why groups should evaluate their community work, provides tools for evaluating community involvement, and provides case studies of organizations doing community-based environmental work.

Check Your Success highlights the importance and benefits of evaluation to community projects.  Though the resource focuses specifically on environmental projects and does not explicitly address community organizing, its focus on community involvement is relevant to community organizing work.

The resource describes several reasons why groups should include evaluation in their process, including:

§  Increasing financial support

§  Improving public understanding and support

§  Demonstrating accountability

§  Strengthening partnerships

The clear articulation of these benefits can help groups recognize why evaluation may be appropriate for their organizations.  The resource offers tools for designing an evaluation process as well as encourages organizations to develop outcome indicators that are reliable, understandable, measurable, and dependable.  It includes a workshop agenda for engaging community residents in the process of developing appropriate outcome indicators.  This workshop may be useful for community organizing groups that are looking for ways to involve constituents as active participants in the evaluation process.

Check Your Success offers four case studies of organizations that are dealing with the environmental and economic impacts of environmental issues in their communities.  They provide good examples of how community-based organizations have developed economic, social, and environmental impacts and how they have used their evaluations to identify not only what their work has accomplished but also how they might improve their work.

Organizational Capacity and Management