A lack of time, funding, and staff expertise can make evaluation and data-informed practice change difficult for many legal services organizations. Yet, better data, outcome-measurement, and evaluative-thinking may allow legal services to build sustainable funding sources. More and more funders are also requiring some level of outcome-measurement or evaluation. Savvy boards, managers, and supervisors in legal services know that investments in building internal capacity for evaluation efforts is needed. But, how should you start? What should you avoid? Join this session for an interactive discussion on how to build your organization’s culture (and love!) for using data and evaluation to improve your legal services and to compel investment from funders. We will discuss various models for integrating data-informed decision making and evaluation into your work, discuss strategies for overcoming challenges such as scarcity of resources and lack of evaluation know-how, and solicit participant questions to dig into your real-life challenges.
