133
• Youth increase bike riding as transportation.*
• Youth increase healthy eating.*
Note: Indicators marked with an asterisk (*)
were not collected across all nonprofits.
After a 4-month process of surveys, consensus
building, and refining logic models for each organization, Wilder Research created (1) a Youth
Retrospective Survey to capture recommended
indicators of personal agency. This survey gives
youth a way to voice their own personal development consistent with increasing their socialemotional learning. Wilder Research also
identified (2) an existing Work Readiness Tool,
developed by the US Department of Labor in
1998 and revised in 2014. These two surveys and
demographic data captured about each participant formed the basic data for this study. The
Workforce Readiness survey is administered by a
work-site supervisor and assesses youth on the
following (definitions for each measure are
included in the tool): (1) attendance, (2) punctuality, (3) workplace appearance, (4) taking initiative, (5) quality of work, (6) communication
skills, (7) response to supervision, (8) teamwork,
(9) problem-solving/critical-thinking, and (10)
workplace culture policy and safety. Three additional items were added at the request of the
group: (11) involvement in something larger than
themselves, (12) financial self-sufficiency, and
(13) job application/employability skills.
10.6 Preparing to Implement
a Common Set of Indicators
Implementing these common indicators was a
challenge for a variety of reasons. Youth-serving
nonprofits most often direct their financial and
personnel resources to implementing programs
and not capturing data. Adding these indicators,
even with a variety of data capturing tools,
required training, the use of new or revised forms,
and new dashboards or analysis. Capturing a
common set of indicators was enhanced with the
following:
Selecting an internal team of three key staff
from each organization and asking all three to
attend several training meetings were important.
Two to three large group meetings each year both
built teams in each organization and offered networking between organizations. The three staff
from each nonprofit consisted of (1) an executive
director or a data manager, (2) the grant writer,
and (3) the direct program manager. As time
passed, sending three key staff to trainings was
not seen as cost-effective by the nonprofit leadership even when many organizations experienced
staff turnovers exceeding 150% in the positions.
Nonprofits started sending smaller teams.
However, without these collective meetings,
adherence to data collection and interagency networking may have waned. The fatigue which is
always associated with learning and implementing new systems was assuaged to some extent by
Wilder Research. To support implementation of
common evaluation instruments, Wilder Research
scientists were assigned to specific organizations
and met with each several times between January
and June 2016 to develop logic models and evaluation plans. Each cohort member arranged to
meet in-person with their assigned research scientist to review the Work Readiness and Youth
Retrospective tools, review the grading scales,
and understand the measurement definitions prior
to implementing the tools. The researchers
stressed the importance of implementing the
tools consistently.
Staff/supervisors were instructed to complete the Work Readiness Tool for each youth
employee/participant approximately 2 weeks
after their programming started and then approximately every 90 days thereafter. A youth in the
program for a year would then be assessed 4
times over the course of that year.
Training instructions were also developed
for cohort members moving to databases for the
first time. Intensive in-house one-to-one trainings
were required in many areas: moving from
spreadsheets to a database to capture longitudinal
data, training program staff to implement the surveys, and training a central data collector. Reports
included blind templates for evaluators and templates with full data for staff. Some cohort sites
opted to use Survey Monkey to capture their
Youth Retrospective Survey results. Instructions
10 How the Youth Social Entrepreneurship (YSE) Model Supports Implementation...
• Youth increase bike riding as transportation.*
• Youth increase healthy eating.*
Note: Indicators marked with an asterisk (*)
were not collected across all nonprofits.
After a 4-month process of surveys, consensus
building, and refining logic models for each organization, Wilder Research created (1) a Youth
Retrospective Survey to capture recommended
indicators of personal agency. This survey gives
youth a way to voice their own personal development consistent with increasing their socialemotional learning. Wilder Research also
identified (2) an existing Work Readiness Tool,
developed by the US Department of Labor in
1998 and revised in 2014. These two surveys and
demographic data captured about each participant formed the basic data for this study. The
Workforce Readiness survey is administered by a
work-site supervisor and assesses youth on the
following (definitions for each measure are
included in the tool): (1) attendance, (2) punctuality, (3) workplace appearance, (4) taking initiative, (5) quality of work, (6) communication
skills, (7) response to supervision, (8) teamwork,
(9) problem-solving/critical-thinking, and (10)
workplace culture policy and safety. Three additional items were added at the request of the
group: (11) involvement in something larger than
themselves, (12) financial self-sufficiency, and
(13) job application/employability skills.
10.6 Preparing to Implement
a Common Set of Indicators
Implementing these common indicators was a
challenge for a variety of reasons. Youth-serving
nonprofits most often direct their financial and
personnel resources to implementing programs
and not capturing data. Adding these indicators,
even with a variety of data capturing tools,
required training, the use of new or revised forms,
and new dashboards or analysis. Capturing a
common set of indicators was enhanced with the
following:
Selecting an internal team of three key staff
from each organization and asking all three to
attend several training meetings were important.
Two to three large group meetings each year both
built teams in each organization and offered networking between organizations. The three staff
from each nonprofit consisted of (1) an executive
director or a data manager, (2) the grant writer,
and (3) the direct program manager. As time
passed, sending three key staff to trainings was
not seen as cost-effective by the nonprofit leadership even when many organizations experienced
staff turnovers exceeding 150% in the positions.
Nonprofits started sending smaller teams.
However, without these collective meetings,
adherence to data collection and interagency networking may have waned. The fatigue which is
always associated with learning and implementing new systems was assuaged to some extent by
Wilder Research. To support implementation of
common evaluation instruments, Wilder Research
scientists were assigned to specific organizations
and met with each several times between January
and June 2016 to develop logic models and evaluation plans. Each cohort member arranged to
meet in-person with their assigned research scientist to review the Work Readiness and Youth
Retrospective tools, review the grading scales,
and understand the measurement definitions prior
to implementing the tools. The researchers
stressed the importance of implementing the
tools consistently.
Staff/supervisors were instructed to complete the Work Readiness Tool for each youth
employee/participant approximately 2 weeks
after their programming started and then approximately every 90 days thereafter. A youth in the
program for a year would then be assessed 4
times over the course of that year.
Training instructions were also developed
for cohort members moving to databases for the
first time. Intensive in-house one-to-one trainings
were required in many areas: moving from
spreadsheets to a database to capture longitudinal
data, training program staff to implement the surveys, and training a central data collector. Reports
included blind templates for evaluators and templates with full data for staff. Some cohort sites
opted to use Survey Monkey to capture their
Youth Retrospective Survey results. Instructions
10 How the Youth Social Entrepreneurship (YSE) Model Supports Implementation...