Beginning Farmer Program Evaluation Resource Library

The Beginning Farmer Program Evaluation Resource Library is a compilation of materials to assist beginning farmer and rancher training programs to conduct evaluation.

This Resource Library was created as part of the Gaining Results through Evaluation Work (GREW) project, funded through a US Department of Agriculture Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) grant. This project supports the development of strong, effective and long-lasting farmer and rancher training programs so that beginning farmers enter the field of farming and establish successful farm businesses.

This library contains hundreds of resources focused on running effective and thorough program evaluations collected by the GREW team. Some resources focus explicitly on farming projects and others provide more general program evaluation instruction. You can use the topic of interest buttons below to search for the types of materials of interest or you can type a search directly “I’m looking for…” bar. 

Below are a series of compiled tipsheets that highlight some of the key resources in the library and aggregate them into useful groupings to help navigate through the evaluation content.

Basic Evaluation Tools and Resources
There are many resources available on the web to help people conduct program evaluation. It can be somewhat overwhelming to wade through them all. To make the process simpler, we have highlighted a few key documents. These items offer basic information and guidance for different aspects of conducting evaluation.  Download the .pdf tipsheet here.

Resources for Using Self-Assessment as a Learning and Evaluation Strategy
Self-assessment in beginning farmer programs can help improve learning outcomes for participants and serve programs as an evaluation tool. GREW offers several resources for learning more about, and utilizing, self-assessment in BFR programs.  Download the .pdf tipsheet here.

Surveys, Assessments and Other Tools for Evaluating Beginning Farmer Training Programs
The GREW Resource Library contains hundreds of resources focused on running effective and thorough beginning farmer and rancher program evaluations. More than 75 new resources have been added to the library and more than 40 of these resources are examples of survey tools, reports, assessments and logic models done by peer organizations serving beginning farmers and ranchers.  Download the .pdf tipsheet here.

Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Evaluation Resources

Twelve new articles, webinars, and websites have been added to our Online Evaluation Resource Library that feature information related to incorporating equity, inclusion, and diversity into evaluation work. In this document we highlight three examples from our library as a starting point for your explorations.  Download the .pdf tipsheet here.

Please visit again – more resources will be added regularly.

If you have a resource you would like to see, have a resource you’d like to share, or have any feedback about the Resource Library, please contact nesfp@tufts.edu.

Source: Equitable Evaluation Initiative

The Equitable Evaluation Initiative is an organization that aims to build an infrastructure that supports and advances putting EE principles into practice, sharing inquiry, creating cross sector learning and shared leadership, and fostering field building.

Source: Ronald Hustedde & John Gruidl

"Major Extension programming, whether in community development, nutrition, youth development, small business, or other areas, strengthens organizations by enhancing the capacity of members to work together effectively. Yet evaluating these impacts is difficult and rarely done in practice. In this article, we apply ideas from the Learning Organization model to the evaluation of capacity-building programs. We identify questions that Extension educators can ask in evaluating the impact of their programming on an organization. In our view, a Learning Organization approach to evaluation holds promise in providing Extension educators with tools to demonstrate the value of their interventions with organizations." 

Source: Racial Equity Tools

This website provides extensive tools, tips and resources for conducting program evaluation. It provides resources with a racial equity lens, as well as materials that focus on the technical aspects of evaluation in general.

Source: Colorado Nonprofits

P&P is designed to promote excellence in management practices, ethical conduct, legal compliance, and public accountability for Colorado’s nonprofit organizations as they perform their crucial community services

Source: GREW

This document provides an example theory of change for a hypothetical training program for aspiring farmers – highlighting the pathway the outcomes take from short-term to long-term.

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