2000115-Strengthening-Communities-with-Neighborhood-Data

Using Data for Neighborhood Improvement 193
were driven by several factors. One was defensive: establishing criteria
against which to evaluate progress was contentious, provoking calls for
greater inclusiveness, alternative modes of inquiry, and a reluctance to
collect data that focused on neighborhood-level change given the sense
that moving the needle on such outcomes was unlikely in light of the scale
and scope of intervention. Another factor was practical: local evaluations
were seriously underfunded and were provided with little technical assistance,
and there was little capacity locally to collect, manage, and analyze
data within these resource constraints. Further, in light of the desire for
feedback on critical process issues and the inadequacy of the national
evaluation in providing it in a timely, succinct, and site-specific manner,
limited resources tended to be committed to providing formative
feedback on more process-oriented issues regarding planning, decisionmaking,
and implementation challenges. A third factor concerned basic
orientations toward evaluation and their position vis-à-vis other priorities:
in the absence of clear expectations from the funder, participants
were initially content to understand change informally, through their
day-to-day interactions and observations. The sense that “we’ll know it
when we see it” without a structured evaluation was common, and plans
to address local evaluation in early proposals were largely just pro forma
acknowledgments of the funder’s expectation that something would be
put in place. In addition, rather than providing dedicated funding for
local evaluation, resources were to be taken from the general grant provided
to each neighborhood initiative. Such funds were often seen as
being taken from investment in programmatic efforts. Finally, certain
kinds of political considerations were at play: the desire for inclusivity
and an approach to local evaluation that reflected and respected community
identity and process informed the search both for researchers of
color and the adoption of methods privileging reflection and narrative.
And, given a long history of extractive research in and negative characterizations
of poor communities and communities of color by universities
and (mostly white) researchers, evaluation was initially seen by some as
something to protect against rather than to engage in.
Neighborhood Data and Planning through
Community-University Partnerships
The second case focuses on an effort to establish a partnership between
a CBO in each of two Chicago neighborhoods and university researchers