Advancing Collaborative Evaluation Network

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion seeks qual­i­fied experts to join the Advanc­ing Col­lab­o­ra­tive Eval­u­a­tion (ACE) Net­work, a group of expe­ri­enced eval­u­a­tors from his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed racial and eth­nic minor­i­ty groups. ACE Net­work mem­bers are avail­able to pur­sue con­tracts to con­duct eval­u­a­tion work for foun­da­tions, think tanks, non­prof­its, research insti­tutes and oth­er pro­duc­ers and con­sumers of eval­u­a­tion who share our desire for a more diverse and inclu­sive sec­tor. They rep­re­sent a wide range of method­olog­i­cal back­grounds and pos­sess sub­stan­tive skills. Qual­i­fied can­di­dates will be inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tors, lead­ers or inves­ti­ga­tors at small eval­u­a­tion firms or researchers in acad­e­mia who are expe­ri­enced evaluators.

The Pro­gram

The ACE Net­work is a pro­gram of the Casey Foundation’s Expand­ing the Bench® ini­tia­tive, which aims to increase diver­si­ty with­in the Foundation’s cur­rent pool of expert researchers and eval­u­a­tors, includ­ing eval­u­a­tors with exper­tise in Results-Based Account­abil­i­ty™ (RBA). RBA is a dis­ci­plined way of think­ing and act­ing to improve entrenched and com­plex social prob­lems. Com­mu­ni­ties use it to improve the lives of chil­dren, youth, fam­i­lies and adults. RBA is also used by orga­ni­za­tions to improve the effec­tive­ness of their programs.

Expand­ing the Bench was cre­at­ed from a fun­da­men­tal belief that increas­ing diver­si­ty in the field of research and eval­u­a­tion improves our knowl­edge base and makes for bet­ter sci­ence and social inno­va­tion. Diver­si­ty pro­motes cre­ative think­ing by expand­ing a group’s capac­i­ty for view­ing issues or prob­lems from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives and van­tage points. Casey wel­comed 65 eval­u­a­tors and eval­u­a­tion firms to the ACE Net­work after the first Call for Qual­i­fi­ca­tions in 2014.

Accept­ed can­di­dates will be list­ed in a data­base for Casey and oth­er fun­ders to con­sult dur­ing the selec­tion process for eval­u­a­tion con­tracts, and will receive invi­ta­tions through­out the year to par­tic­i­pate in eval­u­a­tion-relat­ed pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and oth­er eval­u­a­tion-relat­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties. Mem­bers of the ACE Net­work also may receive infor­ma­tion about eval­u­a­tion-relat­ed RFPs, job announce­ments and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al or con­tract­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. Eli­gi­ble appli­cants who do not meet cri­te­ria that pro­vides evi­dence of eval­u­a­tion and mea­sure­ment exper­tise may be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in future capac­i­ty build­ing, pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to increase their com­pet­i­tive­ness for future calls.

Eli­gi­bil­i­ty

We are solic­it­ing qual­i­fi­ca­tions of eval­u­a­tors from his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed groups with eval­u­a­tion exper­tise in juve­nile jus­tice, child wel­fare, fam­i­ly eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty, com­mu­ni­ty change, edu­ca­tion, envi­ron­ment, pub­lic health, immi­gra­tion and oth­er pro­gram areas.

You or your firm may apply as an ​“inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tor,” a ​“uni­ver­si­ty/­col­lege-affil­i­at­ed eval­u­a­tion researcher” or an ​“eval­u­a­tion firm.” We are accept­ing appli­ca­tions from prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tors who are employed at a firm. Please check ​“inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tor” in the appli­ca­tion, and iden­ti­fy your title and firm affil­i­a­tion in your cov­er let­ter. In each cat­e­go­ry, appli­cants must reside in the Unit­ed States and be from a his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed racial or eth­nic group.

“Under­rep­re­sent­ed” refers to those racial and eth­nic pop­u­la­tions that are under­rep­re­sent­ed in the field of research and eval­u­a­tion rel­a­tive to their num­bers in the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. Such under­rep­re­sent­ed pop­u­la­tions include African Amer­i­cans, Lati­nos, Native Amer­i­cans, Pacif­ic Islanders and under­rep­re­sent­ed Asian Amer­i­cans. There is evi­dence that groups such as Hmong, Cam­bo­di­an and Laot­ian pop­u­la­tions face chal­lenges in access to oppor­tu­ni­ty. Accord­ing to the U.S. Cen­sus 2000 report, these groups had the high­est pro­por­tion of indi­vid­u­als with less than a high school degree as well as the low­est medi­an incomes com­pared to oth­er Asian Americans.

• Inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tors. Appli­cants must pro­vide evi­dence that they have been a prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor on three or more eval­u­a­tion studies.
• Uni­ver­si­ty or col­lege-affil­i­at­ed eval­u­a­tion researcher. Appli­cants must pro­vide evi­dence that they have been a prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor on three or more eval­u­a­tion studies.
• Eval­u­a­tion firm. Firm must be led by a per­son who is a mem­ber of a his­tor­i­cal­ly under­rep­re­sent­ed group. Eval­u­a­tion firms are inde­pen­dent from a uni­ver­si­ty or col­lege. Firm lead­er­ship is defined as an exec­u­tive lev­el role with the author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty to dri­ve the research and eval­u­a­tion agen­da and guide the devel­op­ment of project work scopes. A leader’s author­i­ty can be sole or part of a col­lab­o­ra­tive senior man­age­ment team. Small firms, defined as firms with ten or few­er employ­ees and gen­er­at­ing less than $1 mil­lion in rev­enue, and diverse firms, defined as firms with 50 per­cent of their admin­is­tra­tive and pro­fes­sion­al work­force iden­ti­fy­ing as mem­bers of social­ly and eco­nom­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged groups, are strong­ly encour­aged to apply. Firms should be based in the Unit­ed States.

Appli­ca­tion Process

Can­di­dates will be asked to submit:

• an online application
• a cov­er let­ter that includes rel­e­vant con­tent and method­olog­i­cal expertise
• a resume or CV; and
• an exam­ple of a recent eval­u­a­tion report or rel­e­vant pub­li­ca­tion on which you are a lead author.

By sub­mit­ting your appli­ca­tion, you con­sent to hav­ing your infor­ma­tion list­ed in a data­base that will be used for the dis­sem­i­na­tion of future calls for pro­pos­als and oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties. Please note that the Expand­ing the Bench team will also use the aggre­gate data to assess our progress in expand­ing the pool of eval­u­a­tors from under­rep­re­sent­ed groups.

Due to resource lim­i­ta­tions, only the first 100 appli­ca­tions received will be reviewed in 2017.

Impor­tant Dates and Contact

Appli­ca­tions were due by 5 p.m. ET on Fri­day, Octo­ber 27, 2017.

For more infor­ma­tion or ques­tions, please con­tact Lon­don Losey of Change Matrix, LLC, the new man­ag­ing part­ner of the ACE Net­work and Lead­ers in Equi­table Eval­u­a­tion and Diversity.