Our approach

Elevate Consulting was engaged as the network’s external evaluator, responsible for designing and implementing an evaluation framework that could capture progress across all three partner sites in a consistent and meaningful way. A central part of that work involved building shared data infrastructure — including a standardized event tracking system used by all three organizations to log attendance, volunteers, produce distributed, and materials shared. This kind of cross-site coordination is a core part of how Elevate approaches multi-partner evaluations, ensuring that data collected in the field is comparable and useful at the network level.

Alongside event tracking, Elevate designed participant surveys tailored to the program’s two main workshop types — gardening and nutrition — to capture knowledge gain, confidence, and intentions for behavior change. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all instrument, each survey was designed to reflect the specific learning goals of that program area, giving partners feedback they could act on.

Elevate also brings a commitment to honest, contextualized interpretation of data. In a ramp-up year like Year 1,  key hires are still being onboarded and programming is still taking shape. Elevate’s approach involves being transparent about data limitations while still surfacing meaningful findings and translating them into practical recommendations that strengthen implementation going forward.