{"id":1569,"date":"2013-08-11T15:00:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T19:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/?p=1569"},"modified":"2013-08-09T16:12:33","modified_gmt":"2013-08-09T20:12:33","slug":"cleaning-out-our-closets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/fieldnotes\/2013\/08\/cleaning-out-our-closets\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning Out Our Closets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Closet\"<\/a>

Photo: …love Maegan via Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Recently I was cleaning my closet and came across several \u00a0items that no longer fit well or had long\u00a0 since gone out of style \u2013 yes, I am either \u201cthat old\u201d or styles change rapidly, take your pick.\u00a0 I wondered why I couldn\u2019t bring myself to get rid of those clothes.\u00a0 I am an organized and reasoned person so what was holding me back?<\/p>\n

And then I began to wonder if programs are like clothes in our closets, which was a great distraction because it kept me from dealing with the problem at hand.\u00a0 But think about it: we buy things that reflect who we are or want to be and that coordinate in some way.\u00a0 Sometimes, we buy on impulse without thinking through how the purchase will work with other items in our wardrobe. Over time, we keep buying but not necessarily retiring anything until our closets are stuffed, our dresser drawers won\u2019t close and there are piles of clothing in a dark corner.<\/p>\n

And yet, we tell ourselves maybe that\u2019s not such a bad thing. \u00a0We have something for every occasion.\u00a0 We are prepared for anything.\u00a0 All we have to do is devote resources to maintenance \u2013 more space to organize everything and money and time to keep things clean.<\/p>\n

At some point, and maybe through an intervention involving family and friends, we realize we can no longer go on adding without subtracting.\u00a0 Over time we\u2019ve lost that feeling of wardrobe cohesiveness and well-dressed happiness. In its place is guilt that we\u2019ve wasted money and a growing inability to make sense of how everything fits together. We have avoided making difficult and perhaps emotional decisions and find that our names are being bandied about as candidates for a reality TV show.<\/p>\n

Clothing analogy aside, perhaps you\u2019ve experienced something like this with programs over time at your organization \u2013 many, many programs and too few resources to support them, where any move to change or end any one of them may seem haphazard and eccentric.\u00a0 Staff directly related\u00a0 to the programs view change as a possible threat to their jobs, donors who have become attached for a variety of reasons feel their trust has been broken, and\u00a0leaders in turn avoid potentially difficult and emotional debates by dividing resources to programs equally rather than by their impact.\u00a0Perhaps what is really going on is that we aren\u2019t regularly evaluating each of our programs and that we lack the criteria to frame productive conversations around what stays, what changes and what goes.<\/p>\n

What if we all took time \u2013 right now \u2013 to consider and make some changes?\u00a0 Before we even think about creating a new program, let\u2019s define a clear and compelling need that will drive the choice to do a program and how best to develop that program using our resources.\u00a0 Let\u2019s create a picture of what success looks like that will form a basis for ongoing evaluation.\u00a0Let\u2019s actually evaluate programs regularly and strategically \u2013 using the information learned to reorder, reorganize or retire as needed.\u00a0 And let\u2019s allocate our limited resources towards impact and not by dividing it evenly across all programs.<\/p>\n

The following questions\u00a0may be useful to consider when evaluating a program \u2013 new or existing.\u00a0 As with any process, program evaluation needs to include key stakeholders: the program director, front line staff, key funders or donors and, of course, those served by the program. \u00a0Through explicit measurement and regular conversations, we can gain perspective on our program portfolio and increase our impact.<\/p>\n

Why are we doing the program?<\/p>\n