Eval with Elizabeth

Musings about learning, evaluation, strategy, and data visualization.

Reflecting and Imagining: What’s Ahead in 2022
Reflecting and Imagining: What’s Ahead in 2022

Each year, I feel like I easily reflect on the highs and the lows. There are so many emotions and memories attached to these two extremes, making the milestones easy to remember. In 2021, there were many on both sides. And yet, I find that it’s the messy middle where...

read more
Visualizing Data Projections in Excel
Visualizing Data Projections in Excel

Recently, a colleague asked me how to visualize projections in Excel. Their boss needed to present information to a very fancy office. You know, the one that literally oversees the country and has an election for office every 4 years. So they needed to be accurate,...

read more
3 Tips to Move from Spooky to Success when Reporting
3 Tips to Move from Spooky to Success when Reporting

This week I was featured on Dana Wanzer’s EvaluLand podcast, where we talked about independent consulting, capacity building, and reporting.  One of things we discussed was reporting successes and failures. We all have them. You can hear about a few of mine on the...

read more
How To Design Reports that Actually Inform Decisions
How To Design Reports that Actually Inform Decisions

How many times have you written a report and heard the client respond - This is amazing! I know exactly how to use this information! We changed our processes or policies because of the findings in the report! This is an evaluator's dream. Yet, too often we hide our...

read more
Adopting Inclusive & Non-Violent Language: Part 3
Adopting Inclusive & Non-Violent Language: Part 3

This post is the third in a series talking about adopting inclusive and non-violent language in our work. Click the links to read Part 1 (inclusive language) and Part 2 (non-violent language). The thing about awareness is that once we know more, it becomes hard to not...

read more
Creating & Labeling Small Multiple Bar Charts in Excel
Creating & Labeling Small Multiple Bar Charts in Excel

Last week I presented two data visualization workshops at the UC Davis Human Services 4th Annual Statewide CQI Conference. We talked about how to make informative and impactful data visualizations, how to tell a story with our visuals, and practiced with examples in...

read more