Building Evaluative Capacity for Out of School Organizations that Engage Girls in Computer Science (Abstract Only)

The importance of computer science educational opportunities for girls cannot be understated, and strong evaluative practices are critical for ensuring that these opportunities are of high quality and meet girls' needs. In this poster presentation, participants will learn how a nonprofit and a corporate partner designed a program to build the evaluative capacity of participating nonprofits--the CS OPEN initiative. Presenters will discuss the guiding principles that shaped this initiative and share the challenges to and successes of developing an evaluation capacity building network that supports a diverse set of 12 grantees. Session attendees will learn from the designers and evaluation experts within this network: 1) how this evaluation capacity building partnership was developed and grantees were selected, 2) grantees' experiences and challenges in designing and implementing evaluations, 3) the resources and efforts the partners have used to develop grantees' evaluative capacity and to build the network, and 4) the impacts of these efforts on grantees evaluative capacity. Resources utilized by the CS OPEN grantees will be displayed with ratings and highlights of their growth in evaluative capacity. The poster will highlight major successes and lessons learned for implementing an evaluative capacity building grant initiative.