Barr Fellowship Evaluation
2018-2020
Program goals:
The Barr Fellowship supports individual leadership, enhances organizational capacity, and strengthens Fellows’ connections and cross-sector collaborative capacity. The Barr Fellowship is an extension of Barr’s commitment “to invest in effective, visionary, and collaborative leaders, who motivate others, drive change, and produce results,” and it seeks to advance three goals:
- Recognize, reward, and support accomplished leaders by providing an opportunity for personal and professional rejuvenation.
- Strengthen organizations by providing resources to develop and enhance leadership across Fellows’ organizations.
- Build civic leadership for the region by fostering a strong network of leaders.
Evaluator:
Community Science will use a mixed methods approach to the assessment of impact on Fellows, Fellow’s Organizations, and the network of Barr Foundation Fellows and their partners. The evaluation will assess the extent to which the Barr Foundation has achieved its intended outcomes, analyze the program components with respect to leadership development theory, recommend improvements to program design, and assess long-term program outcomes across recent cohorts.
Evaluation Questions:
- Is the program aligned to best practice in leadership development and, in particular, the development of diverse leaders?
- To what extent are current program design elements grounded in evidence on best practices for leadership development? Are there ways this design could feasibly be strengthened?
- To what extent does the program as currently designed and delivered meet the expectations of Fellows and other stakeholders?
- To what extent did the Foundation and its various partnerships support the success of the program?
- To what extent did the program meet its stated goals at the individual, organizational, and network levels?
- From the perspective of stakeholders, what short- and long-term impacts did the program have on participants? On their affiliated organizations? And on the network of Barr Foundation Fellows and partners?
- Is there evidence that some elements of the program design contribute more to the outcomes of the program? How does the value of program design elements compare to their cost, time, and complexity for various stakeholders?
- Are there elements that were not particularly helpful that should be eliminated, refined, or replaced?
- Does the program generate any observable impacts within the civic sector? Across sectors in which fellows and alumni participate?
Timeline:
This evaluation will occur over a two year period, from 2018 to 2020, with results shared beginning in 2019.