Uplifting Community Perspectives and Balancing Evaluation Rigor in Human-Centered Civic Engagement Project

Abstract Information: Human-centered design projects that prioritize community engagement offer innovative solutions to complex issues, fostering equity and inclusivity. However, managing evaluations for such projects involves navigating multiple stakeholders, evolving strategies, and changing timelines. This roundtable session will delve into the intricacies of planning and executing evaluations for community engagement initiatives, offering insights from both funders and evaluators.

Participants will gain valuable insights into the challenges encountered while evaluating a complex voter engagement initiative spanning the 2023 and 2024 elections. In this human-centered project, the funder engaged a design consultant to work with the community and non-profit partners in five voting deserts to implement neighborhood-based approaches to increase voter turnout. An evaluation consultant was engaged to document and learn from the implementation process, the feasibility of sustainability post-design phase, and future implications for the funder’s strategy in voter mobilization efforts. The presenters of this session are the Evaluation and Learning officer at the funder of the voter engagement work and the managing consultant on the evaluation. Together, they have deep expertise in evaluation practices and voter engagement. During the session, they will discuss the tensions and tradeoffs related to balancing evaluation rigor and honoring community perspectives and needs. The session will highlight how diverse voices contributed to decision-making throughout implementation and evaluation of the project.

Presenters will also facilitate a discussion on how to encourage new evaluator and community perspectives on large and evolving evaluation projects through thoughtful requests for proposals, innovative contracting practices, aligning priorities, and trust-building. Attendees will contribute to the learning by sharing their own experiences empowering community engagement, using equitable practices, and leveraging new evaluators' strengths for innovative evaluation methods.

Targeted questions we hope to pose to attendees for all of us to learn from include:
- How might funders and evaluators empower our communities to speak up when they have long felt as though their voices are unheard?
- What equitable practices come to life when we lead with community testimony in our community solutions?
- What are the most important things to be mindful of when evaluators collaborate with local communities?
- How can we capitalize on the strengths of new evaluators to employ innovative evaluation practices?