"Building Successful Extracurricular Enrichment Programs" is a must-read for educators or administrators who want to develop, implement and maintain engaging out-of-school programs. Accessible and easy to use, this book focuses on four basic approaches to building enrichment programs: grassroots, semi-structured, franchise and fully…

One often overlooked challenge of undergraduate research (UR) is access to information. Growing student diversity, including first-generation students, and increasing calls for a better-trained workforce suggest that higher education should be providing more support for UR. The authors propose that higher education needs cost-effective, impactful…

Business schools today must implement teaching approaches that develop graduates who are ethical, socially responsible, and globally aware. One approach to achieving this goal is to implement mission consistent curriculum. The authors describe the process of developing a service learning project administered in a business communications course at…

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes are in great demand by immigrant adults in the Boston area. The problem investigated in this study was the limited funding to implement ESOL programs in Boston, which has resulted in waiting lists for many contracted community-based programs. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study…

From its founding as a Quaker school for boys to its evolution into a military school and, ultimately, into the thriving coeducational civilian institution it is today, Widener University has been no stranger to change and transition. It may come as a surprise, therefore, that although it had a mission statement and goals, prior to 2004 the…

YoungStar is a program of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) created to improve the quality of child care for Wisconsin children. YoungStar is designed to: (1) Evaluate and rate the quality of care given by child care providers; (2) Help parents choose the best child care for their kids; (3) Support providers with tools and training to…

Revenue generation is a challenge faced by museums in today's economy. The authors encourage educators to take on a larger role in establishing new revenue streams. By applying Jim Collins' "Hedgehog Concept," their unique knowledge of audiences, and their strong ability to work in teams, educators can rethink what they've always done to influence…

High-quality youth arts programs that take place outside the formal education system play a vital role in supporting the developmental needs and well-being of today's youth, particularly youth at risk of negative outcomes. Out-of-school time (OST) youth arts programs provide opportunities for youth to learn about themselves and their world while…

Museum leaders around the country are in the midst of examining and changing their business models in response to new economic realities. Museum educators have an opportunity to play a leading role in this endeavor. To do so educators must understand the relationship between money and mission. For too long there has been a belief that the…

In 1996, United Way of America (UWA) developed and began disseminating the most widely used approach to program outcome measurement in the nonprofit sector. Today an estimated 450 local United Ways encourage approximately 19,000 local agencies they fund to measure outcomes. The authors first describe and then assess the strengths and limitations…

This publication is part of a series of tools and resources on financing and sustaining youth programming. These tools and resources are intended to assist policy makers, program developers and community leaders in developing innovative strategies for implementing, financing and sustaining effective programs and policies. This brief highlights six…

This article examines how a graduate sport-marketing class, at an urban university, implemented a sport-related service-learning project (Hoops Against Hunger) that provided relief to victims of Florida's 2004 hurricanes. The article describes the seven components of the project (need, participants, learning, service, publicity, evaluation, and…

E-mail is seen as an inexpensive, fast way to communicate with university constituencies, especially alumni. The next logical stage for the use of this Internet technology is the development and evaluation of permission based e-mail (PBE) campaigns. In this paper, we directly examine recipient evaluation of PBE in the context of a university…

This issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" describes new developments in evaluating advocacy and policy change efforts that attempt to inform or influence public policy at the local, state, or federal levels. Heather B. Weiss introduces the themes in this issue in "From the Director's Desk," examining how evaluation of advocacy…