Applied Research & Evaluation

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Do you know that you’re making positive changes at individual, family, organizational or community levels and remain uncertain about how to measure those outcomes? Are you planning to conduct a survey and want a professional product that will result in a high response rate and useful information? Are you sitting on data that you’re not quite sure what to do with?

The Strategies Center at Youth for Change™ is ready to collaborate with you, starting from where you are. We add value to applied research and evaluation projects, regardless of our clients’ current knowledge.

We engage leadership, line staff, program participants, and other stakeholders to develop research designs, measurement strategies, and analytic approaches tailored to meet your specific information needs. Every research and evaluation professional development and capacity building element we provide is attuned to the social, cultural-linguistic, and policy environment in which you work.

When the results are in, we will work in partnership with you to design and implement reporting and dissemination strategies optimized to achieve your communication goals with diverse audiences. From scholarly publications to neighborhood presentations and funder dashboards, the results you report will be welcomed as clear, informative, and useful.

Services

The Strategies Center is ready to collaborate with you, starting from where you are. We add value to applied research and evaluation projects regardless of our clients’ current level of technical sophistication. We engage leadership, line staff, program participants, and other stakeholders to develop research designs, measurement strategies, and analytic approaches tailored to meet your specific information needs. Every research and evaluation professional development and capacity building element we provide is attuned to the social, cultural-linguistic and policy environment in which you work.

Research into Action

When the results are in, we will collaborate with you to design and implement reporting and dissemination strategies optimized to achieve your communication goals with diverse audiences. From scholarly publications to neighborhood presentations, the results you report will be welcomed as clear, informative and useful contributions.

Applied Research and Evaluation

Whether you’re preparing for accreditation, planning a survey, a series of focused group discussions, key informant interviews, or a combination of data collection procedures, we provide professional development and technical assistance that starts from where you are to achieve scientific rigor and the production of actionable results that will meet your information and communication goals. The Strategies Center staff has extensive experience evaluating projects funded by foundations, tribes, and federal, state, and county agencies addressing a wide range of social issues. We will assist you to document successes, and to interpret evaluation results for program improvement. The Strategies Center provides evaluation consultation across the spectrum from evaluability assessment to evaluation planning, to project execution.

Broad Range of Services Available

With substantial knowledge of measurement, data collection procedures, research design, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis, Strategies Center professional development and technical assistance starts from where you are to achieve scientific rigor and the production of actionable results that will meet your information and communication goals.

A sample of the myriad facets of applied social research that we have supported includes:

  • Research and evaluation planning

  • Refining information needs and articulating research questions

  • Logic model and theory of change development

  • Identifying and accessing existing information

  • Questionnaire and measurement instrument development

  • Sample design and selection (random, deliberate, intercept and snowball)

  • Web-based, telephone, mailed, and face-to face surveys

  • Focused group discussions and key informant interviews

  • Quantitative and qualitative analysis

  • Community assessment

  • Case studies

  • Manualizing programs to develop fidelity measures and bring them to scale

  • Implementing contemporary research standards for evidence-based practice critical to wide program dissemination and adoption.

  • Performance measurement systems and database development

  • Extracting data from management information systems

  • Reporting and dissemination

The Strategies Center technical assistance is distinguished by many years of real-world experience. Contact us to discuss a practical, capacity-building mix of services and supports to meet your research and evaluation needs at a very competitive cost.