Discuss the importance of establishing partnerships with community-based organizations.

Question

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The Answer is It is important for evaluators to recognize that partnerships take time and effort and that the long-lasting relationship with community-based organizations (CBOs) facilitated the engagement in evaluation activities. When such a strong relationship is not present, evaluators may need to spend time building trust with the CBO. A relationship can be built by getting to know the agency (staff, participants, and programs), offering voluntary services, visiting the agency, attending community events sponsored by the agency, and having informal conversations about the issues the agency faces when evaluating and documenting the impact of what they do. Partnerships between evaluators and CBOs present a rich opportunity for creating evaluation-learning communities. However, evaluation-learning communities have little room for linear thinkers. Building and sustaining evaluation capacity at the organizational level is not necessarily an easy or straightforward task, given the challenges that CBOs experience such as staff turnover, budget cuts, priorities often dictated by state or funder regulations, and demographic changes, among others. These challenges often require that the evaluators and their students go with the flow, are open minded, and are ready to accommodate last-minute changes to plans, training agendas, and project expectations. Building evaluation-learning communities also requires partners assuming different roles at different times in the process. Evaluation partners truly invested in creating evaluation capacity need to be ready to wear different hats and be flexible enough to change as needed. Being able to redefine boundaries and assume different roles requires flexibility and a collaborative participatory approach to the partnership. It is important to value and recognize the set of resources that each partner brings to the evaluation capacity building. Recognizing, identifying, and celebrating resources and expertise brought by each partner aids in creating a balanced partnership.
Overall, partnerships between evaluators and CBOs can become galvanizing movements that foster evaluation capacity building learning communities and organizational transformation. Therefore, the cup will never be filled. There is no evaluation threshold to be achieved. There is always room for improving evaluation activities and building on the experience of putting into practice what is learned as the staff engages in evaluation. Mainstreaming evaluation practices results in a cycle of improving evaluation processes and evaluation outcomes in order to meet program goals and improve the lives of individuals with disabilities. Indeed, partners can build learning communities dedicated to documenting programs and utilizing findings that foster program improvement and social change. Ongoing brainstorming and reflection among partners must take place for the cycle to continue and for the learning community to thrive.

Discuss the Importance of Establishing Partnerships with Community-Based Organizations