The Community Foundation is Debuting Our 2018 Impact Report
The Community Foundation of Western Nevada’s community engagement work has significantly grown over the last five years. Since 2013 we launched three initiatives and have added educational activities to strengthen our community. As our community engagement work expanded, staff and board recognized the importance of measuring impact. We started examining how to evaluate community engagement's impact at our 2017 board retreat and took a deeper dive in early 2018. We realized many of our activities were never evaluated. We had some historical information, like how many people participated in an activity, but it was challenging to determine our impact without an evaluation.
Throughout 2018, we added evaluation to several of our activities and changed some of our previous survey questions to capture richer information. Family caregivers also evaluated our Washoe Caregivers Guidebook and resource website. With objective evaluations in place, we can determine if we are strengthening our community.
DOWNLOAD 2018 IMPACT REPORT HighlightsCommunity Engagement + Action + Evaluation = Impact
Engaging our community is the first step in creating impact. We are a neutral convener and have a place for everyone who cares and wants to strengthen our community. However, community engagement is incomplete without action. We convene our community to develop tangible solutions. Lastly, evaluation is essential for determining impact. We must objectively measure our work to see if we are making a difference. We will continue our community engagement and action, but now evaluation will guide our process. All this information is captured in our 2018 Impact Report. Moving forward, our Impact Report will focus on our initiatives, activities and our Annual Report will recognize our donors, gifts, and grantmaking-- the core of the Community Foundation.
Throughout the report, you will see our evaluation results, including items like increased knowledge and behavioral changes.
Here are some of the highlights we found in our evaluation:
• 94% of family caregivers would recommend WashoeCaregivers.org to another caregiver
• 84% of participants felt more prepared to leave a legacy for their family by participating in the Family Estate Planning Series
• 95.65% of High School Giving Circle participants are more likely to volunteer and 82.6% are more likely to donate to a charity as a result of the program
There is still more to do. Some of our activities do not have an evaluation in place yet, but they will be added in 2019 and beyond. Over the next year, we will also have an outside evaluator review our methodology to ensure our evaluation is accurate and effective.
Read other stories of impact
Please call me if you would like to learn more about our community engagement work and impact.
Nick Tscheekar, Community Engagement Officer
775-333-5499