The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Evaluation Fellows Program for Retooling Professionals seeks to diversify the evaluation field by providing mid-career non-profit professionals with the necessary skills and training to become internal program evaluators. During the one-year fellowship, non-profit professionals will be trained in culturally-responsive evaluation methods while remaining in their job and working on a practical evaluation project for their employer. Each fellow will receive approximately 40 hours of training in three, 3-4 day workshops. The non-profit organizations will receive a $5,000 award and each fellow will receive a travel stipend. Additionally, the fellows will receive technical assistance with completing an internal evaluation project at their organization.

The program’s goal is to help nonprofit professionals become better internal evaluators of their programs and better consumers of information for decision-making. The program also aims to equip participants with evaluation skills that will help enhance the evaluation capacity of their organizations. Ultimately the program seeks to infuse the evaluation field with well-trained individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to meet the increasing diversity of programs and communities that the profession serves.

We will select up to 10 non-profit organizations seeking to expand capacity in program evaluation to enter the program. Organizations will nominate one mid- career staff person to represent the organization in the fellowship. An advisory committee comprised of staff from RWJF, OMG, Duquesne University and other professionals with evaluation expertise will review the applications. Reviewers will score the applications in the following areas:

For the non-profit organization:

• Limited current capacity, but commitment to culturally responsive evaluation capacity of organization;
• Ability to demonstrate how the organization hopes to use evaluation for ongoing learning and program development;
• Existence of a clear plan for how the organization will support the fellow in conducting an internal culturally responsive program evaluation during the year-long fellowship, including realignment of job functions and access to organizational supports;
• Existence of a clear plan for how the fellow will transfer knowledge and skills gained through the fellowship to other staff members for organizational capacity building.

For the non-profit professional:

• Limited current experience and training in evaluation, but commitment to increasing skills in evaluation culturally responsive evaluation;
• Commitment and ability to attend all training workshops and AEA conference;
• Quality of evaluation project s/he will undertake during the fellowship year;
• Willingness and ability to dedicate about 20 hours per month on an evaluation project;
• Ability to demonstrate how they will use evaluation for ongoing learning and program development;
• Ability to demonstrate how they will transfer knowledge and skills gained through the fellowship to other staff members for organizational capacity building;   
• Ability to complete and present a final evaluation product.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Click LInk to Apply> Application deadline: July 30, 2010 (for November 2010 through November 2011 fellowship year)*

* Accepted applicants will be notified in mid-September; the first 4-day training workshop will be held in Philadelphia the last week of October.