“Good Enough” Evaluation
by Samantha Bourque Tucker
A
few months ago, when COVID-19 went
from an epidemic to a pandemic, I
reached out to a grantee to see how
they were doing in light of the situation.
This organization provides uninsured
individuals with free primary and specialty healthcare
with an emphasis on care for patients with chronic
conditions, serving as a medical home to over 850
people. The Executive Director told me they had to
cancel their largest fundraising event of the year that
supports most of their administrative costs. The ED
continued noting they are doing their very best to
provide services via telemedicine and carry out the
grant objectives outlined in their grant agreement,
logic model, and evaluation plan.
As Healthcare Georgia Foundation’s internal evaluation
manager, of course I had already thought about how
our recently awarded grantees were going to meet their
grant objectives this year due to the life-changing
virus. But I truly wanted to know how their
organization, staff and volunteers were doing –
mentally, physically, emotionally. Almost all the
nonprofits the Foundation works with provide direct
care and services to individuals, where the 6-foot rule
can’t apply, or at least didn’t up until this point. The
last thing these nonprofits are thinking about is if they
are implementing programs according to their logic
model, asking appropriate evaluation questions, or
measuring the right indicators. They can’t focus on the
metrics and data that I look for in their progress or
final reports. And that’s okay. That’s good enough.
We know, based on the case statements that were
submitted, our grantees will do a “good enough”
evaluation. Good enough should not be interpreted as
meaning “merely good” or as implying mediocrity; it
has to do with making rational and defensible choices.
The “good enough” approach is a way to drive ongoing
improvement and achieve excellence by progressively
meeting, challenging, and raising responses to difficult
problems, as opposed to driving towards an illusion of
perfection (*Groundwater-Smith, 2011, p 12). Peter
Rossi calls it a “good enough” rule when the evaluator
should choose the strongest possible design after
having taken into account the potential
importance of the results, the practicality and
feasibility of each design, and the probability that
the design chosen will produce useful and credible
results.
Michael Quinn Patton, an evaluation guru,
suggests that some data to support quick
decisions when they are made is better than data
that are too little and too late. Most of the time
decision-making isn’t about yes or no, “This places
‘rigor’ in the context of crisis conditions,
acknowledging uncertainty, emergence and
urgency.” Healthcare Georgia Foundation is
learning to adapt and be flexible. We are changing
our grantmaking, relaxing our reporting
requirements, and not asking for evaluation plans,
logic models, or 10% of their budget towards
evaluation. Our grantees are also learning,
adapting, and showing up with at least a sense of
the decision that seems most supported by the
information they have at hand.
The Foundation trusts that at this time our
grantees and their internal or external evaluators
will do what’s best for their programs and
interventions. The evaluation may not be perfect –
it could be messy and there might be inconsistent
data, but that’s good enough. These organizations
are saving lives, serving the most vulnerable
populations, and putting their own lives at risk.
Let’s not forget that during this pandemic and
these uncertain times, we are all human – it’s
okay to be scared, have anxiety, and we should be
easy on ourselves as we all go through this
together. What we are all doing to survive and
thrive is not only good enough, but it is more than
e n o u g h .
*Groundwater-Smith, S. (2011) Ethical Issues and Practitioner
Inquiry. Keynote address to NZCARN symposium, Hamilton,
New Zealand, 1st July, 2011
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