Nonprofit Program Evaluation with Wendy Wolff

Listen Here

In episode 17 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Wendy Wolff discussed include:
- How leading a non-profit differs from leading a for-profit business
- Awareness vs. action
- Why people are scared of evaluation
- Assumptions to avoid when working with communities
- Changing social norms
- Where to start evaluation on an organizational level
- The barriers to evidence-based testing

Guest Information:
Activating and coordinating community responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic was how Wendy Wolff began her career in the nonprofit sector. Her early career helped her to build a strong understanding about the value and role of the community in program planning and policy development. She brings nearly 25 years of diverse consulting experiences to her role as Director of Strategic Engagement for Maryland Nonprofits. Wendy has collaborated with government agencies; universities; non-profit organizations; and faith-based organizations to enhance the quality of life within many communities throughout the United States. She uses her strategic thinking skills to help clients synthesize information from wide-ranging sources, reframe problems while uncovering root causes to find refreshing, creative and effective solutions.
Over the past two decades, Wendy has helped thousands of organizations and their people to create brighter futures for the communities in which they serve. Her excitement in working with the members of Maryland Nonprofit’s is infectious. She values the genius that each and every person brings to their role in the sector and works diligently to elevate any person that she engages with. 
Ms. Wolff holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from New York University. She has resided as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Denver and as an Associate Faculty Member at Indian River State College. Wendy is a licensed consultant with the Standards for Excellence® Institute. Ms. Wolff’s first book, The Letter Writing Project (Blooming Twig Books), was published in August 2014.

Evaluation Resources

• https://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/mph-modules/sb/behavioralchangetheories/behavioralchangetheories6.html
• https://www.cdc.gov/eval/framework/index.htm
• http://www.gracesocialsector.com/missionimpact/is-your-organization-having-the-impact-you-want
• https://www.amazon.com/Finally-Outcome-Measurement-Strategies-Understand/dp/0578024659
• https://www.amazon.com/Great-Nonprofit-Evaluation-Reboot-Understand/dp/193807792X   

Connect with Wendy Wolff

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/wolffwendy/

Click "Read More" for Transcript:

---

Carol Hamilton: Welcome, Wendy. It's great to have you on the podcast. 
Wendy Wolff: Thank you so much for having me, Carol. It's lovely to be here. 
Carol: So, to get us started, what drew you to the work that you do? What really motivates you and what would you describe or how would you describe your why?
Wendy: Great question. My why started a long time ago. Over 25 years ago. So, I will share why that happened. But one of the things that I love about the work that I do and what jazzes me all the time is that it's a very lonely job, being the leader of a nonprofit, there are a lot of rules and we have this notion in society that it's easier to run a nonprofit than it is to run a for-profit. I’ve done both and I would disagree greatly. I would say that running a nonprofit takes a tremendous amount of skill and finesse, and it's a very lonely position to be at the top because there's a board element and then of course who are your chief volunteers and motivating them and getting them involved yet not having anybody overstep their bounds is a real dance. Trying to find that and being sustainable is how I want to say that. So I think that's a really big challenge and I find that sometimes we refer to ourselves internally at Maryland nonprofits, sometimes as our job is to validate, we do a lot of validating the instincts of executives and supporting the great work that people do, and if they had enough time and enough freedom in their calendars and enough space for strategic thinking, they wouldn't even need us, but we provide that clarity and that moment of taking a break to think about things in a different way. So that's what I love. There's so many other things, but I really want to say how I started my why, how I got my why was: I was at a local health department in Colorado and I was asked - this was in 1993 - and I was asked to sit on a brand new CDC group, and every state was told that you will not get another dime of funding if you don't create community engagement groups, community mobilization groups to help decision makers identify the priorities for AIDS dollars. At the time, we didn't even know about HIV that much. Anyway, long story short, I was nominated to sit on this committee and I was so frustrated. We just went round and round and round and round, it was one of my first professional jobs. It was early on in my career and I'll never forget it. The meeting was being facilitated by the National Civic League. I was like a kid in a candy store. I didn't even know what I was involved in. I just thought it was outstanding that this exists, it was amazing. There's a facilitation team and people are coming all together to make decisions together, but we weren't being successful. So somehow I got myself on the steering committee. Everybody was supposed to check a committee and I'm in this room month after month after month, getting nothing done. So finally, this exact thing happened: I pick up a marker and I jump up and I go ‘Oh my God, who, what, where, when, how’ and I just write it on the whiteboard. I'll never forget it. We got things done! A facilitator confronts me at the end, he goes, ‘do you facilitate meetings?’ And I was like, ‘what's that?’ It felt so right and so good. That's really how I got my start. After that, I started working with the Colorado department of Public Health and Environment, a little bit more through this process and then became a nonprofit executive. I founded a nonprofit to work with intravenous drug users because at the time the rates were skyrocketing and we didn't have needle exchange and all of those things. So that was what really jazzed me which was that somebody has to be the glue to all the genius in the room. I love that role. I love to listen intently and to thread the story so that everybody can hear it clearly. All the same information so that we can act accordingly and together. That’s what I love.
Carol: There's so many things that I want to follow up on from that. I think one of them is your comment at the very beginning where you said that there's this assumption that working in the nonprofit sector is easier, running a nonprofit is easier than a for-profit organization. I've had so many articles about people who come to the end of their career and they say ‘I want to dial back, I'm going to go work at a nonprofit’ or nonprofits are always being told ‘well, people are more business.’ I'd love for you to say a little bit more about, what is it that you believe, or in your experience, really makes it harder to run a nonprofit than a for-profit organization. 
Wendy: Maybe harder isn’t the right word. They're just different to me. They're different organisms. Nonprofits have significant cultural rules, they have processes that they follow. I've had several clients over the last seven years at Maryland Nonprofits where they hired a For-Profit Executive to come in and be the new CEO only to be really dissatisfied that all of a sudden the board - here's the bottom line: in the for-profit world, we don't have to answer to our board of directors in the same way. For somebody who has run their own business, someone else's business, or led a for-profit, they are used to making decisions and there isn’t a considerable amount of decision making that an executive director does that doesn't need the oversight of their board. But when they do, that's when there are a lot of problems. It's already a unique relationship because there has to be attention given to the relationship between the executive director and the board chair. That is not a passive relationship, that is an active relationship. That is two people coming together to decide: where are we heading? And they do this every two years. So they get somewhere and when you bring in a for-profit person, they don't always understand that. So you get the lone ranger aspect, which is: ‘why do I have to answer to you?’ But in fact, you do. That's one element that I think is weird. Then the other thing is that relying on sales or product movement for a for-profit, to me seems a little easier. You have an unlimited, potentially unlimited, revenue source, right? It just means that you have to be a little bit more creative. You have to narrow down who your folks are, that you're marketing to. In the nonprofit, you have to figure out really creative, unique ways to sustain salary for everyone on your operating expenses and admin. We have these rules that you can't have administrative overhead costs, right? Well, you can, but you can't always get funded for them. So it's just difficult and hard. And not impossible, but different. And I think it's just harder. 
Carol: I think it is. It's so interesting, especially with everything that's going on right now in the country and our democracy. I think that the organizations people spend a lot of their time in - whether they work for a for-profit organization, a nonprofit, or the government sector, obviously, it's government, but in the for-profit many organizations try to have more of a bottom up approach- but ultimately the decision-making and the ‘bucks stops here’ ends with the CEO and the leader of the organization. And they can be very effective by being very top down and very directive and in some ways almost autocratic. And in a nonprofit it's much more of that distributed democratic, division of power, not exactly the same as the way our government is set up, but that key relationship between the executive director and the board chair. The executive director working for the board, the board being a collection of, an organ of people. People who then have to act as one and keep that fresh in terms of new people and. So there's so many more constituencies, you're managing a lot of constituencies. So often, I've heard it referred to as herding cats. I'm sure there's aspects of that in the for-profit sector as well, but I've definitely seen folks who’ve made that switch say that they were even more challenged because there were so many stakeholders and constituencies that they had to think about. Then the fundraising side, as you talk about, it's not that direct, ‘customer to company’ relationship. You ended up having, again, a triangle of - especially in cause-related non-profits- a donor who gives to the organization because they're motivated and for a variety of different reasons. But then the people who actually receive services may be contributing a small amount, may not be contributing anything or large funder- all of that complication of that indirect relationship of how the money flows 
Wendy: You just said it. It may be the trick is that it's not harder, it's much more complicated. It's complicated to run a really streamlined, effective, prosperous, sustainable nonprofit. It is. And I don't know if it's complicated in the for-profit world in the same way. 
Carol: Yeah. As you said it's really just that in a lot of ways, there's so many things that are different. And the rules, the structures, the processes and the culture, can be very different. 
Wendy: This is not to say, ‘don't hire a for-profit person to be your CEO’. This is not to say that, but give them ample opportunity to understand the culture and the nuances of the nonprofit, business cycle and the life cycle of a nonprofit. All of that has to go with that.
Carol: Yeah. You work across a range of different areas, some of them being strategic planning and evaluation. And that's another piece, I think that, in a way, is so different in the nonprofit sector. Especially those working with missions that have a long horizon; you're not going to see change over a long period of time. There may be a lot of different factors that go into being able to demonstrate outcomes, but yet that's so important. I'm curious, how would you define evaluation and why it's important for nonprofits?
Wendy: That’s a great question. The first thing I want to say about evaluation that I've figured out over the last 30 years or so, is that people are definitely afraid - not definitely- people are afraid of evaluation, just that word. The truth is we evaluate all day long. I'm evaluating right now. We evaluate: ‘Should I wear this? Should I wear that? Should I eat this? Should I eat that? Should I wear my seatbelt? Should I not wear my seatbelt? Should I drink water? How much water?’
So the first thing about evaluation is that we do it all day long. That is how we get from moment to moment in this lifetime. We decide where we're headed and we figure out the degree to which we have succeeded. So evaluation to me is, and this is such a sticky part because there's two pieces about evaluation. There is this whole notion of evidence-based programming. And then there is this notion of ‘what are you trying to accomplish?’ And ‘how close are you to accomplishing that?’  I love this phrase and I use it a lot when I work with people around evaluation: “What we're trying to figure out is the degree to which something has been achieved.”
‘Has it been achieved fully?’ And ‘what was that?’ And ‘are there things beyond once it's been achieved fully, that will keep happening? Or has it been achieved slightly? Or middle of the road?’ So when we're evaluating the degree to which our programs are successful, we have to keep that in mind. It's not a, ‘did we do it or didn't we do it?’ It's ‘how did it go?’ And what was accomplished and what, what, and even more importantly, what wasn't accomplished is also-
Carol: Can you give me an example of that one? I think in some ways, I think it's easy for people to kind of- I mean, the place that my brain went when you started describing in that way, it was almost like the kind of tactics in a strategic plan that are like, ‘have we checked these things off?’ But I don't think that's really what you're talking about. So I'm wondering if you'd give me an example.
Wendy:  Sure, sure.  So I'm going to try thinking on my feet, it’s the end of the day, but the first thing I do want to say is there are four- Oh, dear, this is an evaluation class, isn't it? So there's four- 
Carol: We'll try to make it not scary. Because I agree with you, people find that they're just like: “Evaluation. Oo, it's a big E and a big V!” What's that, you know?
Wendy: Yeah, and we have these things where the same terms mean different things. There's formative evaluation and that you execute when you are trying to determine if something will work. Informative evaluation, you are pilot testing, you are asking questions, you are talking to the community before you do anything. Just to find out, ‘Is that this right?’, ‘Is this wrong?’, ‘Will it work?’, ‘Will it not work?’ 
Here's a great example. Okay, well, I'll get you the example in a second. Then you've got process evaluation, which is widget counting. ‘How many brochures do we hand out? How many meetings did we do? How many people attended the meetings?’ When we do, then we have [an] outcome and impact. Outcome evaluation is ‘what happened and did that change anyone's life, now?’ ‘How has it changed someone's life, now?’ An outcome evaluation to me- first of all, there's also not one school of thought, some people use different schools of thought and timeframe- but to me, timeframe determines whether or not we use outcome evaluation or impact evaluation. Outcome tells me what occurred and how did that-, how was that set up for people's lives to change? ‘Did they change to what degree, what worked, what didn't work’. And then impact evaluation is longer. Longer down the path that says, ‘So what are the results? Did people change? And was it lasting?’ That costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oftentimes, people interchange, misuse, the words ‘impact’ and ‘outcome’. So [I] just wanted to share that because even I think, in my opinion, I know a lot about evaluation. I'm not an expert. I don't like to call myself an expert in anything, but I know I like it and I know quite a bit about it. 
So a good example would be, let's say, we did a series of discussions in the community about quitting smoking. Right. What about- let me see if that's the [example] I want to use. Hold on. Oh, let's do nutrition. That's better, that's better. So we have, we're doing a series of discussions and it's been so long since I've been in person with people that I'm like, ‘do we even do that anymore?’ Yeah, let's pretend we're in person. We're doing community discussions, we invite the community in, because we know that that high blood pressure is running rampant in a certain community. We invite people in to help them understand how to control it, right?. And so in the formative stage, we might ask five or six individuals from that community: ‘What should be in our program? What would make this more meaningful? How could we get people to come?’ So we do all that work. We create some networks and we actually get quite a bit of people. We've had 50 people come. It's amazing, right? To two sessions, 50 people to two sessions. Could we say that that was a success? Yes, only though it was a process success. It was not an outcome that 50 people came because we have no idea the degree to which they are going to go home and make it change their lives. So maybe the class was about not using salt because we know that salt is really bad for high blood pressure. Well, the fact is that a lot goes into decision-making. So the question is will two classes [that were] wildly attended- which is great, that's nothing to sneeze at- but could we say that those two classes will have a direct result in people's lives being changed? I don't know. I don't think so. So programs need to use this and this is why the logic model is so interesting and now we're really geeking out.
 Carol: Let's just get geeky on this. Tell people what a logic model is. 
Wendy: It's so great because the logic model is the roadmap, right? So it gives you an opportunity to go, ‘Where do we want to be?’ And then logically work backwards from where we want to be, where we want the community to be, or our participants at the target population. And then we work backwards and ask ourselves, ‘Well, if we want to be there, does this make sense? Does this make sense? Does this make sense? Does this make sense?’ So, and- at this point, actually in our evolution, and with the internet, there are so many, so many things that have already been evaluated that we could build on the successes of others without just developing new programs. So evaluation provides an opportunity for us to be thoughtful, think strategically and make sure that things are lined up. To get the best result possible for the community. And logic is a great word because if it's not logical, if it doesn't fit, then [you] probably are not going to have strong outcome results. So that was four hours in about five minutes. 
Carol: Yeah and I appreciate that because I think one of the things that actually having a group build that logic model for themselves- and it sounds, it sounds geeky and cumbersome, but really it's, ‘Let's map out what our thoughts and assumptions are.’ And by making it a visual, and by going through the process, you have a chance to dig into what those assumptions are. I've worked with a lot of organizations that work in the conservation and environmental field. Oftentimes, especially around their program, their work that's with people - often citizen scientists or they're doing environmental education or other things like that - they can't measure that or demonstrate the impact of that in the same way that they can measure the pollutants in a river, let's say. But so often the vision is that a group of people by participating in their programs will become advocates for their local river, let's say. And yet, when they think about what they're doing in their program, their goals are that people will understand more about the river. Then you have to say, okay, it's kinda like the geometry teacher wanted you to show their math and all your steps. ‘How do you get the people from, they understand a little bit more about their river and they've gone to it and they'd been on it, to this leap of and being an advocate. Like there's gotta be some more ladder, you know? So, sometimes it's, ‘Well, that's where we actually want to get, this is what we're doing over here.’ How do we help people? Or, it's probably a subset of the people. Take those extra steps to move them closer to what we're hoping for them rather than just being a hope.
Wendy: Exactly. And that was a great illustration. You did a good example and we have to be clear when we're writing proposals and talking to funders about what we're promising, because those advocates, no matter, they are fired up, those folks who come to that first session, those environmental sessions. They could be fired up and super excited, but we have to take into consideration what it takes to get from information to action and also the confounding factors that go into it. I could be absolutely jazzed. You could be the best person; I have come to both of your sessions. I walk away so excited and then I go home, and I've got three kids, and I work full time, and I'm exhausted, and there's no time for myself. And even though my intention is to become an advocate, there are other things surrounding me. So what we have to do in program planning and evaluation starts before people walk in the door. We have to think about ‘what's the trajectory of that person?’ And ‘how do we interact with them?’ And is that an okay result that I've come to two things? We've checked the boxes that we've had 50 people at each session. And that's wonderful because that tells us that people are changing in their awareness , but does it mean that they're taking action? And that's a different thing and sometimes the change in action takes much, much longer. And the last thing I wanted to say is, the word assumption is amazing in the logic model, because along that we have, there are so many assumptions that we have to consider when working with communities. And we also have to look at- I love the theory of behavior change by proChaska and DiClemente, which says people go from precontemplation, to contemplation, to action, to maintenance, and to relapse. Tenants relapse, and if you are not in contemplation, I have to know where my community is coming into a program, so that I can figure out if I can help them change behavior. If you don't even think that smoking's bad, nothing I'm going to do is helping you. So we can't push people along. They naturally go through that process. But we have to recognize that when we plan programs. 
Carol: It was actually the smoking piece that made me think that just bringing people to awareness, just providing information, has now been proven over time doesn't necessarily create- it can for some people, they will be self motivated and it will create action - but one does not equal the other. 
Wendy: And they have to match. And I always look back on- we did a lot with smoking, right? I mean, we used to smoke in elevators, on airplanes. So we did this huge social movement together. Drunk driving, wearing seatbelts; We've accomplished a lot as a community, but we still have the difficulty of helping individuals changing their behavior. So when we are writing our evaluation plans or designing programs, we need to really hone in on: ‘What's the change we're hoping to see and how does everything we do set a person up to eventually make that, take that leap.’ They may not all take it. And how do we know? So we could go on and on.
Carol: Yeah. And what you also talked about kind of, which is an area that I feel like I want to learn more about is: how does that, changing social norms, actually play into this as well? Because we're such social creatures and I, it was so interesting that you talked about smoking. Cause I was at a meeting, a zoom meeting, today and a woman was smoking and I was just so shocked. And whatever 40 years ago, that would have been totally normal. Every single person would have been. So, yeah, it's fascinating. Yeah. So people think it's scary. We just talked about some complicated thing, we used a bunch of different terms. How do folks- Actually what's a place to get started? If an organization isn't doing evaluation yet, or maybe they're doing evaluation, but it's more of the kind of, ‘are you satisfied with whatever we offered, today?’ ‘Did you like the workshop thing?’ 
Wendy: ‘Did they come and did they like it?’ And the thing is, workshops. So we- 
Carol: And that's just one thing that organizations do, obviously they do lots of other things. 
Wendy: They do lots of things. And what I wanted to just say about that is, there's a difference between the changes that people make and the intent to change that we cannot say when we do, workshops that people are going to change. We can say that this demonstrates an intent to change, but anyway, how you would start is this.
 I teach a lot of evaluation classes actually. And one of them, what I love, what I always go back to and it's - I have my master's in public health and love public health - I think public health (we're witnessing it right now) but public health for years and years and years has been, for decades and decades has been using terminology for evaluation and requiring programs to be evaluated. So I recommend that people utilize public health, evaluation tools. [The} Center for Disease Control has excellent resources on evaluation, and to me that is the most clear version of it. And then there are a lot of books on evaluation, grab one or go on it, but make sure that it's “evaluation made easy.” It doesn't have to be complicated. We are not talking about evidence-based evaluations that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're talking about, how do we build programs so that they're logical and that we can say, ‘Here's what we think will happen at the end of this.’ And then we have to backtrack and go, ‘Well, if we're saying this is going to happen, how will we know? Okay, we've got to talk to people. How will we talk to them? Will we call them? Will we invite them to a meeting? Do we have to pay them for their time?’ So to me, the resources are- definitely go to the CDC. I can't remember, there was- I can't remember. I'll try to get you a list of resources, but any public health organization that is doing evaluation is I think, light years ahead and has a lot of insight personally.
Carol: Yeah and you talked about that evidence-based work and programming and the investment that takes. But can you just say a little bit about what that is and even if folks, a small organization, can't try to tackle something like that, what can they learn from what other people have done?
Wendy: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So evidenced-based programs are ones that have gone through a fairly rigorous evaluation model to prove that the structure of their programs and the design works. And that if you hold what's called fidelity, if you hold to everything that they say that has to be done, you too can achieve, with your target population, the same results. So it costs lots of money. One of the difficulties around the term evidence-based programs is that it excludes anything that's not been evaluated already within this very formal type of evaluation. It's difficult. I think there's systemic issues around that because it's only the programs that have the money to do evaluation that get noted as an evidence-based practice. But there are other practices that work while there are promising practices, there are lots of things that work. So, I don't want to be political, I think you could Google a little bit about the politics around evidence-based evaluation, that you could see a bunch of the difficulties that exist around it. And I think personally, Wendy Wolff thinks that just because a program isn't an evidence-based program does not mean it's not valuable and changing lives. It just means that it doesn't have the funding to become an evidence-based program. What we need to do - those of us who don't have the money to prove the degree to which our program has been successful for large groups of people - is to keep track of very good notes to make sure we understand who the target population is and what they come to the table with before they interact with us. That [way] we can measure some way or demonstrate the change that has occurred between them before they came in and then after. And it might be anecdotal information, it might not be scientific. It might not be cutting edge data, but it's interesting and profound and lives are being changed. That has to be honored because- I have a great story that I love. This was in West Baltimore a couple of years ago. We stumbled across a gentleman who was- it was in the summertime - he'd create a fire in a fireplace and people could see it from the road and he had hot cocoa and he had a welcome sign. He invited people to come sit around the fire and have a cup of cocoa, chat and they would connect and would exchange information, help each other, and get each other services. Is that an evidence-based program? No. Was it making a difference? You can bet your butt it was. People were connected. People were getting resources. People had friends, they weren't alone. Those are all good things. 
Carol: Yeah. Even if you don't go to this step of implementing measurement processes, just the fact that you've had a conversation to unlock those assumptions, I think can, bring about shifts in the program, in the staff and the board, around the understanding of what you're trying to achieve. just that process I think can have impact and can be valuable. Yes. 
Wendy: Then my last plea is to carve out time at the beach before the program begins so that we- once people walk through the door, we've lost an opportunity for measurement. So we want to understand, we want to really create some thoughtful time to understand what it is that we want to collect along the way. And I want to tell you, easier said than done. I myself have been in the middle of a program and been like, ‘Oh, we haven't done any evaluation indicators yet.’ 
The idea is that we can never go back. People can't go unlearn something. So we need to know, if we want to capture the degree to which people have changed, we need to know where they come in at. Then we can say, even if it's not this scientific evidence-based program, that change in a person's life is huge and storytelling is enormous. And right now I'm leaving a fairly large project and I- So today, just today, one of the participants in this big cohort that we're leading wrote me a note and said, ‘I'm so excited. I feel great. I'm getting huge results with my consultant. I see that we're going to be in a better place at the end of this.’ (Which is two years) And I save that. I was like, I'm going to need this at some point. It's not scientific, but I can go back to it in two years. I can go back to that and go, ‘This is where he was.’ And actually I wrote back, ‘Can you be more specific?’ So I can go, ‘Oh, this guy was at, didn't have this, this, this, and this. Now look at him.’
Carol: Yeah. And I think that point of, helping, figuring out a way to capture some of that, essentially that baseline of where folks are starting from, you're always wanting to develop a program that meets people where they are. So then also documenting that starting point where they are, is key to be able to then see the difference. 
Wendy: Yeah, yeah. And report it. Stories, stories do a lot. Storytelling is amazing. 
Carol: Right. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't all have to be numbers. There is plenty of, from a qualitative point of view- Very valuable, yeah. Well, we certainly got geeky on program evaluation, but I mean, it's so important and I do think that, try to demystify it a little bit because, for the majority of nonprofits, smaller organizations, small budgets, and yet they're being- hard to get started in that realm and hard to know. They're dealing with so many different things and juggling a lot of different things to build that in as well. Seems hard. but the benefit, well, I mean, what would you say? For those smaller organizations kind of. Why is it worth spending the time to do it? 
Wendy: Well, to plan out an evaluation strategy? 
Carol: Try to incorporate it, yeah. Evaluate a little more, just a little more, maybe evaluation into your, into your, yeah- 
Wendy: Just a little more, yeah. First of all, I think it will be relieving because we are peppered or pummeled with the question of, ‘How's your program doing? What's the results? What's the impact? What's the outcome?’ And that makes everybody so nervous. So the more thoughtful we can be to really think about ahead of time how we will know we've succeeded or the degree to which we've succeeded. That'll help reduce our stress because when we're asked that question, we'll go, well, here's how. These are great- this happened to me just this week. I had to write a report to a funder and I was like, ‘Oh, well, I have that all written because I had been collecting this data all along. Just put it in this file, put it in the file.’ And then when it’s time to write the report, there it is. So I think anything we can do to, to collect, to - I don't want to say the word prove, cause I don't like that - to demonstrate how we are making a difference, whether it's immediate or short term or it has potential for longterm, any way we can demonstrate that it will build our confidence and it will support us and it will help our sustainability.
Carol: Excellent. 
Carol: Well, at the end of each episode, I ask, a somewhat random icebreaker question. So, if you could have any fictional character as your friend, who would you choose and why? 
Wendy: All right, wait a second. Any fictional character as my friend. Oh dear. Hold on. I got to scan through my shows and stuff. Let's see. Fictional character. I really like Lisa Simpson from the Simpsons. I love her desire for good. I like Lisa's musical talent. I like that she doesn't give up on her hope and her commitment to what's right and just in the world. So I really like Lisa Simpson. So off the cuff, not having known that question, I think that would be one of my choices and I'm sure there's better ones, but that's the one right now.
Carol: Well from how you described Lisa, it sounds like she'd be a good addition to the nonprofit sector.
Wendy: Lisa Simpson would be a great CEO and a great activist. 
Carol: All right. So what are you excited about? What's coming up next for you or emerging in the work that you're doing?
Wendy: That's great. Good question. I am really excited that- my role at Maryland nonprofits that maybe people don't know because they see me in the consulting role is that my title is ‘Director of Strategic Engagement’ and my job is to - we restructured a couple of years ago - So the consultant group is in my department. So I am still actively involved, but I'm excited. My role of strategic engagement is to build relationships, bring and dot connect, which I love to do. So what I'm excited about this year, I have three priorities. My three priorities are- Carmen Marshall, our director of consulting, runs a beautiful racial equity program. And Carmen is one of the most lovely human beings I've ever met and I am looking forward to helping her to download all of her thoughts and get that developed and put into a plan we can execute. So I'm really excited about that. I'm super excited about our legal consulting program. Patty Morton has been doing legal consulting for Maryland nonprofits - she's our general counsel and she's also on my team- and up until two years ago, most of the work Patty did was a lot of startup work. She does mergers and other great stuff, but what we have seen over the years is people really love Patty. She's amazing and they need that help, so I would like to build Patty's legal consulting program. That's something else we're going to do. Then finally, the claim to fame for me is our Standards for Excellence Institute. That's my third priority to help more folks understand the standards and understand why being a licensed and accredited organization could be a good choice for them and how to utilize the standards. Those are my three strategic engagement focused areas, and I'm super excited about them. 
Carol: That's awesome. And I love that you've got three because as a person who helps groups with strategic planning or your personal planning, three is the magic number. That's just enough. That's just not, not too few, not too many, to really have focus. Well, thank you so much. It's great having you on and we'll put links in to how now people can get in touch with you and learn more and about the things that you're talking about. So it was great, I appreciated the conversation and the chance to geek out with you on evaluation. 
Wendy: That's so great. Thanks for having me, Carol. This was a treat.