Fall 2014 - 62685 - PA388L - Advanced Topics in Management

Increasingly, donors of all types—whether multinational aid agencies like the IMF or philanthropic organizations—are requiring evaluations of the programs they support to ensure accountability.  Program evaluation involves the use of science-based qualitative and quantitative techniques to assess achievements. Because of the wide variety of nonprofit programs—which range across fields as diverse as education to air quality, and attempt interventions as different as improving women’s health to reducing school violence—an immense array of data collection and analytical techniques are available to aid evaluators in their efforts to determine if and how well the programs work.  This class will emphasize methodologies, tools and techniques.  Students will have an opportunity to conduct an evaluation process—beginning with issues of stakeholder involvement, question formulation, selecting relevant indicators for investigation, appropriate data display and reporting methods.