New series of how-to guides for evaluators advancing racial equity

Contact: Javon Dobbs, communications manager
Tel: 269.969.2079
Email: javon.dobbs@wkkf.org

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – Today, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) releases Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity, a three-part series for evaluation professionals describing how to incorporate racial equity as a core value, embedded in every aspect of the evaluation process. These practical guides are designed to help evaluators strengthen their expertise and improve the services they provide to clients and communities. 

“In this transformative moment in our world, we want this new tool to become the textbook for how to embed racial equity in evaluation practices, serving as the standard for the profession moving forward,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “I am excited about the potential for this cutting-edge series to shift the field’s thinking and become a lasting parameter for equitable measurement.”

Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity builds off decades of WKKF’s learning alongside social justice-oriented evaluators in the field and community practitioners on-the ground. 

“The global outcry for racial justice over the past few years also grew the evaluation community’s desire for a tool that practically links the processes of evaluation and racial equity,” said Dr. Huilan Krenn, director of learning & impact at the Kellogg Foundation. “It’s in this spirit that we’ve carefully crafted these three transformational guides.”  

• Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity – Debunk Myths  
  Identifies many of the misguided beliefs and ideas held by funders, advocates, community leaders, evaluators and others that can create barriers to practicing evaluations for racial equity.
• Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity – Diagnose Biases and Systems  
  Recognizes the implicit biases that influence evaluation practice and evaluators’ understanding of systems in evaluations.
• Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity – Deepen Community Engagement  
  Promotes responsible, responsive and genuine engagement of communities in the evaluation process and as an outcome in evaluation.

These easy-to-use resources will help evaluators integrate racial equity principles into their daily work. Each guide provides meaningful definitions, models, case studies and reflection exercises that can be applied in real-time. 

The creation of these guides was commissioned by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and led by Community Science, an internationally recognized evaluation agency. A diverse cadre of distinguished evaluators and social justice advocates provided insightful reviews and feedback on the guides.  

“We know why we have to do evaluation in service of racial equity, but we struggle with how; these guides help us take the first step toward the how,” said Dr. Kien S. Lee, principal associate and vice president at Community Science and primary author of the guides. Community Science will host a series of webinars, featuring each of the guides during January 2022. 

This three-part series, Doing Evaluation in Service of Racial Equity, complements a number of the WKKF’s important evaluation resources, including:

• The Step-by-Step Guide to Evaluation, published in 2017
• Logic Model Development Guide, published in 2004
• Evaluation Handbook, published in 1998 

Explore the new guides to learn more.

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The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), founded in 1930 as an independent, private foundation by breakfast cereal innovator and entrepreneur Will Keith Kellogg, is among the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. Guided by the belief that all children should have an equal opportunity to thrive, WKKF works with communities to create conditions for vulnerable children so they can realize their full potential in school, work and life.

The Kellogg Foundation is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, and works throughout the United States and internationally, as well as with sovereign tribes. Special attention is paid to priority places where there are high concentrations of poverty and where children face significant barriers to success. WKKF priority places in the U.S. are in Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans; and internationally, are in Mexico and Haiti.