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Impact Reporting-Stepping Up to the Challenge

Bob Wells

Summary

Few times in our role as extension educators does an idea find its way to national prominence. Yet, Annie’s Project has grown to serve agricultural women in 21 states. The reasons are clear; educational methodology helps educators meet critical participant needs; instills in participants a desire for personal growth, addresses relevant local agricultural production and provides applied risk management tools. Annie’s Project participants become empowered to make management decisions increasing the farm businesses success. As Annie’s Project educators, we see these impacts first hand. However, the Annie’s National Network Initiative for Educational Success (ANNIES) must step up to meet the challenge of quantifying program impacts to improve the program and attract funding; both essential components of meeting future client demands. Evaluating a local program offered just a few times is much different than evaluating a national on-going program. In this session, we share how ANNIES is improving our impact reporting. Since establishing ANNIES in 2008, we reevaluated old data sets in new ways and developed a logic model to guide us and continue using stakeholder meetings to ensure new programs meet local needs. ANNIES worked with NIFA/CSREES to compile data from across the country. We also established a relationship with the ISU Research Institute for Educational Studies seeking third party confirmation and new impact reporting skills. This presentation will explain these methods, share the results and include a facilitated audience-participatory discussion on program evaluation and impact reporting.

Details

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