After reading the material in the chapter, review the challenges that one might face when evaluating advocacy efforts.

Question

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The Answer is Although advocacy evaluation can be problematic in a number of ways, evaluators can proactively address the challenges through early identification of potential barriers, such as the lack of a practical guide for conducting advocacy evaluation, different requirements by funding sources, varying perspectives regarding the role of evaluation, trouble identifying outcomes, and methodological issues. Without practical guidance and resources for conducting advocacy evaluation, nonprofit organizations and other agencies often struggle to assess their advocacy efforts. Furthermore, funders struggle with evaluation requirements, often stipulating that the fundee limit the focus to solely outputs or impose overly aggressive outcome goals (e.g., achieving a policy change in a short period of time).
Beyond varying requirements for evaluation, differences among funders add additional challenges for advocacy evaluation. In addition, the alignment of funder preferences with the activities and objectives of an organization's advocacy efforts may be a difficult process. Moreover, funders differ in their goals and emphases for evaluation activities; some focus exclusively on outcomes, others emphasize implementation, and still others prefer to assess the connections between the implementation of advocacy activities and outcomes, all while adhering to state laws and federal Internal Revenue Services (IRS) requirements for lobbying-related activities. State and federal IRS and ethics stipulations are another unique challenge that can impact advocacy evaluations as the design, process, and results must not violate any requirements. Clearly a one-size-fits-all approach to advocacy evaluation will not meet the needs of all funders.
Another challenge to advocacy evaluation relates to varying perspectives regarding the role(s) of evaluation in this context. For instance, many organizations engaged in advocacy efforts view evaluation as reflecting opposition to their work. In a similar vein, the leadership and staff of some organizations may think their work cannot be evaluated and, in fact, believe efforts to conduct an evaluation can hamper advocacy efforts. Evaluations of advocacy may be labeled as unsuccessful if the efforts do not include prespecified activities or achieve predetermined outcomes, despite the variable nature of advocacy work and plethora of unpredictable policy influencers.
Determining outcomes represents another challenge to advocacy evaluation. Traditionally, projects are funded for short time frames, usually 1-3 years; however, the goals or targeted outcomes of advocacy efforts often require a much longer time frame. Therefore, it is important to determine appropriate or flexible time frames at the outset, noting that changes in outcomes and time frames are commonplace in the advocacy and policy arena. Additionally, outcomes can be difficult to define when key contexts and stakeholders are changing due to political climate and election cycles. Flexibility is crucial in specifying variables and processes for advocacy evaluation, both for short-term and long-term outcomes.
Finally, advocacy evaluation faces a number of methodological challenges. Challenges in this context include making accurate attributions (i.e., supporting that observed actions or changes reflect a specific effect of an individual, organization, effort, or activity), accounting for complexity (i.e., various methods are typically employed across different levels to achieve a single goal), organizational capacity and engagement (i.e., evaluation experience and evaluation process buy-in of staff members), assessing and controlling for the role(s) of external forces (i.e., advocacy efforts, at various levels, working together (or against) the same goal), reconciling shifting strategies and milestones (i.e., shift in tactics to reflect change in advocacy context), and managing varying and often extended time frames (i.e., amount of time needed for social, political, or policy change.

After Reading the Material in the Chapter, Review the Challenges