Learning Objectives: Describe how Minnesota evaluates its community-based grantees, and lessons learned from the evaluation process.
Abstract: The Minnesota Legislature created an endowment from a portion of Minnesota's tobacco settlement. The Minnesota Department of Health was directed to spend up to five percent of the fair market value annually to fund youth health initiatives. The Minnesota Youth Tobacco Prevention Initiative (MYTPI) was created to address the tobacco-related part of the endowment.
As one part of a comprehensive plan, Minnesota awarded community-based tobacco prevention grants consisting of 27 local grants and 23 population-at-risk grants. To build evaluation capacity in the 50 grantees, Minnesota awarded a grant to the University of Minnesota, which developed the Program Evaluation Assistance Center (PEAC).
PEAC tailors its evaluation support to fit each grantee's needs. The evaluation focus is program improvement. PEAC works with grantees to develop their required evaluation plans. PEAC also provides evaluation support through customized data collection tools, training in data collection methods, and support for data analysis and report writing.
PEAC is also conducting overview evaluations that focus on common areas of the grantees' work. Currently, the overview reports provide lessons learned from grantees. As the programs continue, the overview reports will address effective strategies.
The presentation will address how Minnesota is approaching the following lessons learned:
· Providing one-on-one evaluation help to grantees is useful. · Grantees need help in turning work plans into evaluation plans. · Grantees need help in understanding how to use their data for program improvement. · The more flexibility allowed in work plans, the harder it is to provide evaluations across grantees.
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