Generating ideas, connections, and action

Evaluation Learning Circle

The Evaluation Learning Circle is a community of leadership development evaluators, practitioners, and funders who share resources, engage in shared inquiry, and generate collective knowledge about how best to support and evaluate leadership development for social change and social justice. For the last year we have been experimenting with a wiki as a documentation and learning tool.

We use evaluation and research as tools to:

  • surface our assumptions and theories about leadership development and social change,
  • define outcomes and indicators that can be documented or measured,
  • adapt exisiting methods of inquiry and develop new methods to document and measure leadership development,
  • build the capacity of leadership programs and initiatives to participate actively in evaluation and research, and
  • improve our efforts to develop and support leadership and to make the case for investing in leadership development as a social change and social justice strategy.

We use virtual and face-to-face learning activities to explore answers to our most important questions. We document our learning through the Evaluation Knowledge Pool where we share and link to practical resources that can be used to strengthen program design and implementation and improve our evaluations. Visit the wiki to learn more about us and our recent work.

Blog Entries

  • What attracts and sustains your participation in leadership networks?
    Claire Reinelt

    This is one of the questions the Boston Learning Circle will be exploring in an upcoming Conversation on Leadership and Networks.  I started to reflect about my own participation in leadership networks, about what attracted my participation and why I remain committed. In 2000, when I joined Deborah to establish learning circles among practitioners of leadership development, I invited evaluation practitioners to form a network to co-evolve our practice together, and collectively influence the field of philanthrophy.  We formed an unlikely alliance since we often competed with each other for work. These were the days when evaluation contracts were more substantial than they are today!  I was attracted to form an evaluation learning circle by the unparelled opportunity to learn with colleagues I respected.  I knew we all had gifts to share with each other, that would push our collective capacity forward.  We became a community voice in the fields of evaluation, leadership development, and philanthropy. 

    03/16/2010 - 07:02
  • Reflections on using Social Network Analysis with an Emergent Leadership Network
    aerindunford

    One of this year's Community Seed Fund projects was a collaboration between the Berkana Exchange and Connective Associates to test the value of using social network analysis to illuminate and build capacity of the learning centers that the Berkana Exchange convenes through the Art of Learning Centering.  The Berkana Exchange believes that be naming, illuminating, and connecting learning centers they can unleash the capacity for self-organizing and collective leadership among those who participate in the learning centers. 

    06/22/2009 - 07:04
  • Designing an evaluation for a community health leadership initiative
    Claire Reinelt

    The Leadership Learning Community Health Leadership Circle and the Center for Creative Leadership, hosted a peer consultation session using an on-line conference tool, WebEx. During the hour and half call, over 30 people provided insights, inquiries and tested advice to a team from the Center Creative Leadership who are partnering with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop "Ladder to Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders."

    11/20/2007 - 07:35
  • Using EvaluLEAD
    Claire Reinelt

    What experiences have you had developing and using EvaluLEAD results maps? How have you adapted EvaluLEAD in the contexts you are working in?

    10/22/2007 - 06:29
  • Leadership innovation and the role of evaluation
    Claire Reinelt

    What is the role of evaluation in the process of leadership innovation? This is a question we discussed recently at a Boston Circle gathering. Debbie Frieze shared Berkana’s theory of change that starts with a premise that local leadership is a powerful force for innovation and change. Experimentation with new ideas and processes happens at the local level where leaders are responding to the conditions they face. They actively seek alternatives to “business as usual.” Innovation often inspires resistance because people are not easily able to let go of the old to make room for the new.

    09/23/2007 - 16:19
  • Networks and Communities of Practice: What is the difference?
    Claire Reinelt

    Networks and communities of practice are often terms that are used interchangeably. Is there a difference?

    09/09/2007 - 09:12
  • Learning about Networks
    Claire Reinelt

    Welcome to the Evaluation Learning Circle blog space! We invite you to register to our site and create your own blog to share resources, ideas, and stimulate conversations about leadership development evaluation that are important to you. Here's my first blog post.... In the last few years there has been growing interest among those in the leadership development field to develop and strengthen leadership networks. One of the tools for understanding networks is Social Network Analysis (SNA).

    07/22/2007 - 12:04
  • Evaluation Wisdom - an overview of evaluating leadership development programs
    Elissa Perry

    If you would like to learn more about how leadership programs evaluate their outcomes and impacts, e.g., what outcomes and indicators they define, what approaches, methods, and sources of informati

    06/21/2007 - 13:43
  • News from the Evaluation Circle
    Elissa Perry

    The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation is now available! The Handbook provides broad and practical information about how to conduct leadership development evaluations using a variety of approaches. This companion site includes the book's introduction, a summary of each chapter, and links to resources that are mentioned in each chapter. The Handbook was edited by Kelly Hannum, Jennifer Martineau (both with The Center for Creative Leadership), and Claire Reinelt of LLC and brings together a collection of outstanding leadership development evaluators from the nonprofit and for-profit sectors to share their learning about leadership development evaluation design, implementation and use in different contexts.

    06/21/2007 - 13:37
  • Creating Space VII - 2006
    Elissa Perry

    At Creating Space VII, the Evaluation Learning Circle hosted three sessions. Click on the links below for more information and resources.

    06/21/2007 - 13:16

Related Resources

Title Subject Author Uploaded By
Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation
06/29/2007 - 10:02 Elissa Perry
Eisenhower Fellowships Final Evaluation Report
07/09/2007 - 13:51 Elissa Perry
Accelerating Learning about Leadership Development: A Learning Community Approach
06/29/2007 - 13:05 admin
Leadership Learning Community Evaluation
07/09/2007 - 14:24 Elissa Perry
Leadership In Action Program Evaluation
07/09/2007 - 14:17 Elissa Perry
Creating Space V Evaluation Sessions: Evaluating Social and Systemic Change Strategies
06/27/2007 - 15:04 Claire Reinelt
EvaluLead - A Guide for Shaping and Evaluating Leadership Development Programs
07/09/2007 - 14:04 Elissa Perry
Engaging New Leadership Voices
06/27/2007 - 15:10 Claire Reinelt
Exploring Personal Transformation in Leadership Development
06/27/2007 - 15:29 Elissa Perry
Theories of Change and Community Leadership Development
06/27/2007 - 15:55 Elissa Perry
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