Performance Indicators
The overall goal of the project, as noted in the abstract, is to implement a system of
mutual exchange among cooperative organizations for their benefit and the benefit of
their members and localities. The first tool produced in the service of that objective has
been a directory of cooperative organizations. The goal of the directory portion of the
project is to increase the number and accuracy of listings of cooperative organizations
and other locally owned businesses in the Northeast region, to increase awareness among
cooperative organizations of the directory and the listings in it, and to ensure the
sustainability and continued usefulness of the directory over time. The goal of the notices
tool is to facilitate transactions among organizations listed in the directory, with messages
targeted by topic and geography. The success of this portion of the project can be
evaluated by
(1) the production of usable tools,
(2) usage of the tools by cooperative organizations,
(3) increased awareness among the target population of the tools, and
(4) presence of necessary elements for continuous development of tools and strategies.
by Clements (2001) to measure impact, not just output.
As the project did not proceed to the point of completion in the original timeframe,
overall project goals could not be adequately assessed. The evaluation below is thus
necessarily only formative, not summative.
In order to conduct a formative evaluation, project participants (Lynn Benander, Paul
Fitzpatrick, and Jason Lemieux) were interviewed. The main points that these interviews
were intended to elicit were (Kellogg 1998):
(1) What went well during project implementation? What factors contributed to that?
(2) What went less well during project implementation? What factors contributed to that,
or what resources could have made a difference?
(3) Are the project's goals well suited to the capacity of the organization?
(4) Are the project's goals well suited to the needs of participants?
(5) How should the success of the project be rated [so far]?
(6) What resources does the project need to continue successfully, and are these in place?
According to project participants, the successful aspects of the project included:
generated (despite only reaching 75 respondents) that the organization can continue to
follow up on, unexpected connections with interested and talented community
members, and the development of a tool--the directory--based on results.
of limited data, creative strategies for implementation--in particular, use of the wiki
model--and iterations in the prototyping.