Narrators like to highlight important events in their stories. In some languages, they may shift to first- or second-person pronouns to refer to third-person referents in order to do so. Such pronoun shifts show functional parallels with tense shifts like the historical present, as both highlight events through shifts in deictic categories. Longacre (1983:138-39) discusses the parallels between person and tense shifts in his account of narrative peak, that is, the formal marking of important narrative events. Labov (1972) analyzes similar strategies as internal evaluations. Person shifts constitute a phenomenon of the discourse-syntax interface and present a clear case of discourse structure influencing grammar. Both person shifts themselves and their motivation in narrative structure have been little investigated. The article reviews person shifts in a number of languages reported in the literature and analyzes in detail the characteristics of this discourse strategy in Saliba-Logea, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea. The study contributes to the growing body of research on pronouns and person markers, and on referring expressions more generally, by adding a new angle of investigation. Previous studies have tended to focus on the morphosyntactic choices of referring expressions and their motivations, that is, on the choices between lexical nouns, free vs. bound pronouns, and so forth. The present study focuses on the paradigmatic choices between different person forms within one and the same morphosyntactic expression type. In doing so it offers a new perspective on pronoun choice and the factors influencing it crosslinguistically. While some types of person shift appear to be rare, overall, the strategy of person shift at narrative peak seems to constitute a solid crosslinguistic phenomenon.

Grassroots organizations have a central place in service provision within many urban communities, particularly as they work with young people. Enhancing the potential of youth serving organizations is vital as many of these small groups lack infrastructure and resources. One organization has gone beyond grant making to organizations to include providing technical assistance, then moving to a model of capacity building to improve their ability to fulfill their mission. This paper describes the efforts of New Detroit to improve the infrastructure of youth serving grassroots organizations through a multi-faceted model and the outcomes evidenced from the first cohort. In addition we explore the contradictions inherent in working with small groups. How do you improve effectiveness without destroying the “homegrown” character these groups possess? The model presented here shows the value of empowering small grassroots groups to build capacity.

The ERC has been a pivotal innovation in the set of funding instruments that the European Commission has established for fostering research and innovation in the European Union. With more than 8000 projects funded so far, it is worth asking about empirical evidence regarding the ERC’s specific impact on the social sciences. This article provides some basic data, along with descriptive statistics, on the social scientists who have been sitting on ERC evaluation panels, and on ERC-funded research projects from the social sciences. The article ends with a discussion of the data and poses questions for further investigations.

Non-profit organisations are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their social impact. This paper examines the experience and behaviour of non-profit organisations in the UK in relation to a demand for social impact evaluations. External resource providers request organisations to present evidence on how resources are used and what organisations have achieved. While most organisations are willing to comply and accept this control, they can also resist through using their discretion in deciding what to measure, how to measure and what to report. Non-profit organisations can proactively and voluntarily use social impact measurement for learning and promotional purposes, and as a way of exerting control over their environment. The analysis develops the concept of strategic decoupling to explain the differences observed between what organisations are asked to do, what they plan to do and what they are doing in practice.

Over the last two decades, nonprofit organizations in the United Kingdom (UK) have faced increased pressure to measure their activities in order to demonstrate their competency, to achieve legitimacy, and to obtain funding. This paper draws from recent literature in the sociology of science to examine quantification in the British voluntary sector as a historically situated and socially constructed process. Using archival and secondary documents, I find that quantification is not a new practice for charities in the UK; moreover, while they have employed metrication in the past, what activities nonprofits have measured, and the importance of measurement for their organizational success, has altered over the course of the century.

In democracies, elections in which voters elect their leaders and hold them accountable are the most important part of the democratic process. This study is about the people who work on the frontline of democracy and who play a major role in elections, namely poll workers. Surprisingly little is known about how poll workers evaluate elections, and we provide a detailed analysis of poll workers' views of how elections work in Sweden. We do this by reporting and analysing the results from a survey conducted among poll workers in Sweden shortly after the 2022 election. The results show that although many types of polling station-related problems were rare, some problems occurred to a greater extent than we expected. It is also clear that many of the problems had a negative impact on the poll workers' evaluations of the quality of the voting process.

NPOs and their funders are increasingly drawn to the Social Return on Investment (SROI) method to evaluate the social impact of programs, organizations, or organization networks. While many claims about the benefits of SROI have been expressed, various points of criticism have also been raised. On the basis of both current research and our own experience in conducting SROI analyses, we develop a comprehensive assessment of this method, which is structured along two dimensions: the observer’s paradigmatic perspective, on the one hand, and positive or negative valuation, on the other. We identify two major merits: SROI analysis can provide legitimacy to NPOs or their funders, and it can assist in allocating resources efficiently and effectively. We identify limitations from three perspectives: From an interpretative-sociological perspective, criticism of commensuration and utilitarianism calls the method as a whole into question. From a technical-instrumental perspective, there are a number of difficulties that could, however, be overcome as the method matures. From an intermediary perspective, a number of limitations become apparent that, while inherent to SROI analysis, are no reason for abandoning it, as long as they are thoroughly understood. We conclude by providing suggestions for the responsible use of SROI analysis.

This article asks whether French NGOs have fallen into line with the wider trend towards professionalization that has marked the Northern nonprofit sector, most notably Anglo-American NGOs, over the last two decades or so. It shows how French NGOs, particularly those engaged in longer term development work, were characterized by militancy over the early post-colonial decades. It then demonstrates how, over the global era, the French state has encouraged developmental NGOs (NGDOs) to undertake bureaucratic forms of professionalization. Next, it looks at how these organizations have, in response, adapted their staffing, structures, and procedures, whilst stopping short of overly standardized forms of development. Finally, it shows how French NGDOs have, in eschewing “technical professionalism”, been acting in line with resource dependence theory and responding to the demands of their critical resource, which is not the French state but the donor public and their grassroots supporters.

Nonprofit community service federations (CSFs) leverage collaborative relationships with community stakeholders and their own direct economic activity to impact local community outcomes. Under the Collective Impact Framework, CSFs influence community outcomes mainly by acting as backbone organizations, which provide central program support and fiscal management services for a nonprofit network of stakeholders and serve as a grantmaking fiscal intermediaries. There remains no standard approach to evaluate impact on community outcomes. Economic impact analysis has been underexamined in academic literature as an approach to community outcomes evaluation. This paper presents a case study of the United Way of Southwest Alabama (UWSWA) to demonstrate the use of economic impact as an outcomes measurement for use in collective impact program evaluation. Economic impact assessment using conventional input–output methodology provides a broad measure of the economic influence of the UWSWA on indicators of regional economic activity such as output, value-added, earnings, and employment. This study uses a 3-year (FY2017-FY2020) sample of financial data supplied by UWSWA to estimate its scope and scale of economic activity. The case of UWSWA demonstrates how economic impact analysis may complement other impact evaluation methods. The paper finds UWSWA generates substantial positive economic effects on its service region through both its grantmaking and business operations.

While the links between the fields of social enterprise and social finance appear apparent, academic research on the relationship lags behind practice. This study examines how social enterprises interact with social finance organizations in the context of impact measurement. Through qualitative research with eight social enterprises and their respective funders, I find evidence that both sides view impact measurement primarily as a means for establishing legitimacy prior to engagement, and in the early stages of their relationship. These relationships are hierarchical and rigid at early stages, but over time evolve into more collaborative partnerships. Eventually, social enterprises embrace impact measurement as a tool for organizational learning, and social finance organizations develop more empowering approaches for impact measurement. The level of flexibility and the closeness of the relationship between social finance organizations and social enterprises suggest important lessons for the development of a more enabling use of impact measurement.

This article examines how evaluation induces policy learning – a question largely neglected by the scholarly literature on evaluation and policy learning. Following a learner's perspective, the article attempts to ascertain who the learners are, and what, and how, learners actually learn from evaluations. In so doing, it focuses on what different types of learners actually learn within the context of the evaluation framework (the set of administrative structures defining the evaluation goals and process). Taking the empirical case of three EU programme evaluations, the patterns of policy learning emanating from them are examined. The findings are that only two types of actors involved in the evaluation are actually learning (programme units and external evaluators), that learners learn different things (programme overview, small‐scale programme adjustments, policy change and evaluation methods) and that different learners are in control of different aspects of the evaluation (learning objectives and processes) according to the evaluation framework established by the European Commission.

The international community has identified a positive link between good governance and economic development. There is an increasing appreciation of the effective role that local policy research organizations (PROs) in transition and developing countries can play in providing evidence-based policy recommendations as the basis for sound legislation and in assessing the efficacy of existing programs. Capacity building programs for PROs are seen as a key component of growth strategies. The donor community has responded with support for such efforts, which take many forms. On the other hand, the evaluation of the effectiveness of these capacity building and mentoring programs has been inadequate. This article presents the evaluation of one program, focusing on two important capacity building program outcomes: improved research capacity and greater effectiveness in the policy arena. A reflexive design is used. The results suggest the program’s approach is promising.

In this paper I provide a preliminary sketch of the types of logics of evaluation in the third sector. I begin by tracing the ideals that are evident in three well-articulated yet quite different third sector evaluation practices: the logical framework, most significant change stories, and social return on investment. Drawing on this analysis, I then tentatively outline three logics of evaluation: a scientific evaluation logic (systematic observation, observable and measurable evidence, objective and robust experimental procedures), a bureaucratic evaluation logic (complex, step-by-step procedures, analysis of intended objectives), and a learning evaluation logic (openness to change, wide range of perspectives, lay rather than professional expertise). These logics draw attention to differing conceptions of knowledge and expertise and their resource implications, and have important consequences for the professional status of the practitioners, consultants, and policy makers that contribute to and/or are involved in evaluations in third sector organizations.

Enabled by the underpinnings of critical theory, this article discusses research methodology developed with the aim of empowering beneficiaries within Third Sector Organisations, through their participation in organisational evaluation processes. The discussion on methodology in this article occurs at three levels: conceptual, processual, and reflexive. The conceptual level explores ontological and epistemological assumptions that shape the critical approach. At the processual level, research methods are explored, drawing on case studies involving interviews with beneficiaries. In interviewing beneficiaries, Third Sector research becomes a means of representing this group. Finally, the reflexive level explores how findings from the processual level enable praxis through the development of approaches supporting beneficiaries’ participation in organisational evaluation processes. As such, Third Sector research can engage beneficiary participation, in order to promote more effective beneficiary participation organisationally.

There has been an increase in the use of e-learning as a form of delivering higher education. Much of the innovation has gone hand in hand with what has been called an ‘evaluation bypass’ and has seemingly been popular because of its economic efficiency. The literature on new technologies tends to be written by those committed to the innovation. They tend to present innovation as a good, regardless of what the innovation is, and ‘resistors’ as in some senses deviant. Using the example of the Higher Education Funding Council for England-funded multimedia project, ‘Doing Political Research’, this paper argues that some degree of scepticism about innovation can be seen as a positive response. Furthermore, the paper argues that the cost-saving arguments put forward by proponents of innovation are illusory. E-learning can be as costly as other means. However, it does offer alternative ways to teach and can be particularly effective at reaching isolated learners. The conclusion is that for e-learning to be effective it must place learning first.

In this commentary, we focus on the linking problem Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven identify. Instead of taking a stance on the issue of universal grammar itself, we adopt an epistemological and methodological perspective on language acquisition research. We argue that the problem, linking the input to preexisting representations, constitutes just a small part of a larger methodological problem, namely how to link the input a learner receives, through a set of learning mechanisms and possibly innate representations, to the behavior the learner is producing, whether in spontaneous production or in laboratory experiments. Currently, none of the existing proposals provide an evaluated, or even a testable, account of the full process, that is, an input-output model of linguistic ontogeny. Although the focus on phenomena in isolation, probably an effect of the prevalence of the experimental method, allows the researcher some degree of control, it also distracts from the understanding of how the different mechanisms behave and interact. Our proposed solution is a more Holistic approach to the problem in which the learning mechanisms and their interaction are made fully Explicit, and in which the predicted behavior of the learner is (more) Globally evaluated. Computational modeling provides exactly the tools appropriate for this task, thereby furthering more precise and testable theories of the learning mechanisms involved.

The objective of this article is to deepen the debate surrounding the practice of evaluation as performed by Brazilian NGOs. In order to accomplish this goal, we examined the results of an investigation conducted between 2007 and 2009 that had two stages: first, a national study and second, a quantitative and qualitative study made in the state of Santa Catarina. We also considered secondary sources of data from two important studies on the national level that were conducted in 2008 and 2009 by the Fonte Institute, with partnership of the Itaú Social Foundation. The results showed that most NGOs use internal rather than external evaluation and conduct evaluations focused on projects and programs. Furthermore, they used evaluation mainly to help decision making about projects. Consequently, the majority of NGOs focused their evaluations on results and were not concerned with creating spaces for self-reflection and learning.

The Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science Rural Health Research Core emphasizes community engagement to address healthcare access and delivery. In 2023, the Midwest Rural Health Research Community Advisory Board (CAB) was established to guide research. Eleven of 13 researchers presenting to the CAB in 2023 completed a survey assessing influence of CAB feedback across seven domains. All reported >1 domain influenced by CAB feedback, most commonly on study design, pre-research activities and implementation. CAB feedback shaped many aspects of the rural health research process. CAB members valued seeing how their input contributed to the research process.