2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

144 Strengthening Communities with Neighborhood Data
and impact over the longer term (Walker and Moore 2011; Auspos and
Kubisch 2012). There is a substantial literature on evaluating local social
programs and community improvement initiatives; see the discussion in
chapter 7 and, for example, Harrell et al. (1996) and Connel et al. (1995).
Two trends in the field of evaluation should increase the demand for
community information in the years ahead. First, although in the 1990s
funders focused much more on evaluation, they now give more emphasis
to performance management in the local initiatives they fund. Walker
and Moore (2011) note that whereas evaluation is often performed by
external researchers for an outside audience after the program is complete,
performance management is conducted by the managers and staff
of the initiative itself. It is “owned by” them and conducted to achieve
their key internal objective of improving performance in process. In
addition to increasing demand for community information in the short
term, systematic data collection from the start could lead to the availability
of better information for evaluation in the longer term.
Second, alternative approaches to evaluation are being considered.
Evaluators would like to find out whether a program unambiguously
caused the relevant outcomes that are observed, and a full randomized
control trial is the ideal way to accomplish that. Yet controlled trials
for complex community initiatives are extremely difficult to implement.
Chapter 7 describes a number of alternatives that, in today’s data-rich
environment, are less costly to implement than they were in the past. In
addition to creating more demand for neighborhood-level data, exploring
new analytic options should improve the methods for using them.
Education and Engagement
One of the central determinants of the actions we take, individually and
collectively, is our perception of how the world works and how conditions
are changing around us. Facts that run counter to the conventional
wisdom are likely to command attention and, ultimately, change behavior.
Community information generated in all the types of applications
above can influence public opinion and motivate action.
Organizations can adopt a range of tactics to educate the public at large,
including the traditional media, blogs, and public events. Other advocacy
efforts target specific audiences. For example, an activist may use neighborhood
analysis about increased housing prices in her testimony to the
city council about potential city programs to promote homeownership.