Congratulations on the new initiative! Is it time for a new committee?

SAN Francisco Bay Area (Calif.); CALIFORNIA

United Way of the Bay Area (UWBA) has started to implement its 10-year initiative: Cut Poverty in Half in the Bay Area by 2020, in partnership with hundreds of organizations. The goal is audacious, and the effort required immense. As a founding steering council begins to move forward with all the complexities of this initiative, among the many challenges is to answer how our progress and impact can feasibly be measured. The concept of an evaluation advisory committee (EAC) holds tremendous appeal as a way to leverage the best experts to provide critical input and help us define credible evidence for success. In developing the EAC, we found no ready-made guide and began constructing our own approach. This chapter discusses considerations for the framework of an EAC, and shares some key decisions about its purpose and structure. It shares our initial goals, the proposed composition of the EAC, and how our understanding of engaging an EAC has evolved. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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