“The specific objectives of this research project are to: 1) Determine the effectiveness of community-based collaboration from the perspective of the participants; 2) identify which criteria or indicators of success are important to participants; 3) move beyond the use of case studies and conduct an aggregate analysis of data from many cases; and 4) test and refine the Participant Satisfaction Scorecard as a state-of-the-art instrument.” (Participant Satisfaction Scorecard can be found at the end of the paper.)
“Evaluating these (collaborative approaches to public participation and resource management) is an important step in drawing lessons to improve collaborative processes. In fall 2001, The Hewlett Foundation awarded a grant to the Montana Consensus Council (MCC) and CBI to test and refine the “participant satisfaction scorecard,“ a tool used to evaluate the success of community collaborations. The term community-based collaboration (CBC) was defined as the use of partnering, facilitation, mediation, consensus building, and other “alternative dispute resolution“ techniques to prevent and resolve public interest conflicts (i.e. conflicts involving local, state, and/or federal governments as at least one party to the conflict). The goals of the project were to: 1) evaluate how successful CBCs are from the perspective of participants; 2) determine which criteria or indicators of success are most important to participants; and 3) refine the scorecard as an evaluation tool.“
“Evaluation, both formal and informal, helps to define, measure and improve public involvement effectiveness. Feedback from people who participate in public involvement events or processes often points out what works and what does not. Knowing that can lead to events and processes that are more meaningful for participants and contribute more to EPA's decision making processes.“
This site includes, among other things, Public Involvement Activities Questionaires for: Community Advisory Groups, Federal Advisory Committees, Listening Sessions, Small Discussion Groups, Public Meetings, Public Hearings, and Stakeholder Negotiations.
“The U.S. Institute is firmly committed to evaluating environmental conflict resolution and collaborative problem solving projects and services. The evaluation system is necessary to (a) measure and report on performance and (b) to facilitate continual learning and improvement when evaluation feedback is gathered, analyzed, and shared with appropriate audiences.
“The evaluation system focuses on six areas. Specifically, these are:, Situation/Conflict Assessment Services, Mediation/Facilitation Services, Training and Workshop Services, Facilitated Meeting Services, Roster Program Services, and Program Support and System Design Services.“
“The purpose of this checklist is to guide evaluations from a deliberative democratic perspective. Such evaluation incorporates democratic processes within the evaluation to secure better conclusions. The aspiration is to construct valid conclusions where there are conflicting views. The approach extends impartiality by including relevant interests, values, and views so that conclusions can be unbiased in value as well as factual aspects. Relevant value positions are included, but are subject to criticism the way other findings are. Not all value claims are equally defensible. The evaluator is still responsible for unbiased data collection, analysis, and arriving at sound conclusions. The guiding principles are inclusion, dialogue, and deliberation, which work in tandem with the professional canons of research validity.“
by Ian Leahy, Editor, and Gerry Gray. Communities and Forests, Fall 2004, Volume 8, Number 3.
“In community forestry circles, we often talk about “Criteria and Indicators,“ a shorthand term for an assessment and learning process that is still evolving. From a practical perspective, what are criteria and indicators? More importantly, what, if anything, do they mean to community forestry practitioners more concerned about on-the-ground projects than abstract international agreements? Now, as a three-year project focused on connecting communities into the Montreal Process framework comes to its conclusion, we may finally have an answer.“
“This document is intended to serve as an indicator 'tool kit' for forest-based communities that are working on maintaining and enhancing their natural resources as a basis for long-term economic, social and environmental health. A key component of the tool kit is the Montreal Process Criteria and Indicators - a framework, which helps assess ecological, economic and social aspects of forest resources. Although originally developed to evaluate national progress toward sustainable forests, the framework can be adopted at local level. Three communities tested this tool kit as part of the three-year pilot project, funded by USDA Forest Service. Appendix D describes the process each community went through and some of the key lessons learned.“
“Evaluation is a key part of the overall plan to train and support facilitators. Evaluating the facilitation component of your program can help you: learn what is and isn’t working well; monitor how the facilitators are doing and respond to their needs; come up with new strategies to improve your program; explore the impact of the study circle process on the facilitators.“
“In addition to describing a promising toolbox of measures, this report also introduces a theoretical framework that makes sense of the findings regarding these measures and may help researchers and practitioners better focus their efforts to understand deliberation. Finally, it makes a variety of practical suggestions regarding how practitioners can improve their efforts to demonstrate the value of deliberations.“
“Performance measures are emerging among federal land management agencies
as a new approach to gauge agency progress towards goals, as a basis for
funding allocations, and to provide accountability to the Administration,
Congress, and the public. … Key Recommendations: 1. Include performance measures related to collaboration,
community benefit/capacity building, and change over time in land conditions (forest
and watershed resilience; risk reduction from catastrophic wildland fire) in
all future agency strategic planning initiatives.“
A Review of Research Literature on Factors Influencing Successful Collaborations. by Paul Mattessich, Barbara Monsey, and Marta Murray-Close, June 2001.
“This new, revised edition reaffirms the success factors found in the first edition and adds a new success factor. It also identifies ways in which the previous report has been put to use to improve the practice and research on collaborations. Also included are: a working definition of collaboration, summaries of the major findings, detailed descriptions of each factor, and an extensive bibliography. Finally, and perhaps most important for organizations involved in or considering collaboration, it includes a Collaboration Factors Inventory--a self-guided assessment tool that potential or current collaborators can take to assess the presence of each of the twenty factors.“
by Lynne M. Borden and Daniel F. Perkins. Journal of Extension, April 1999, Volume 37 Number 2.
“The tool is a self-assessment exercise allowing groups to rate their collaboration on key factors … goals, communication, sustainability, evaluation, political climate, resources, catalysts, policies/laws/regulations, history, connectedness, leadership, community development, and understanding community. With this tool, collaborative groups identified … factors that need to be worked on. … In all cases, the self-evaluation tool can be used to strengthen the collaborative group.“
A Primer on How to Develop Metrics for Sharing Your White Water to Blue Water Partnership Successes. Price Waterhouse Coopers, January 2005.
“Now that you have formed a White Water to Blue Water Public-Private Partnership, how will you communicate the successes and challenges of the Partnership to your various and diverse stakeholders? How do you construct metrics so that they can be clearly understood by the WW2BW PPP management, employees, and other stakeholders and how do you ensure that the metrics developed serve the WW2BW PPP in meeting its objectives? What information is needed to share your metrics with internal and external stakeholders and to demonstrate progress?
