Learning Evaluation

Component 1: Program Monitoring

Staff monitored grantee activities using several means.

• Annual reports submitted by the grantees providing information specifically requested by FIELD.
  
  
• MicroTest: This performance measurement system is managed by FIELD and designed to develop and test performance measures for the practice of microenterprise development. It is also designed to document the range of performance achieved by representative microenterprise organizations across the United States.

  Performance measurement categories include target groups, scale, program services, costs, efficiency, and sustainability. A final category focuses on outcome measures.
  
  Data collected from grantees, was aggregated with, and compared, to that of other similar institutions (credit unions, community development corporations, community action agencies, employment and training organizations, etc.). This helped develop an understanding of average performance by institutional type, and allowed individual organizations to benchmark their own performance against others in the field.

Component 2: Program Documentation

The ultimate goal of this cluster was to document the strengths and weaknesses of distinct institutional models with respect to the scale, sustainability and effectiveness of their microenterprise efforts. The intent was to provide guidance for others interested in integrating microenterprise into their organization, as well as to develop information that funders and policymakers would find valuable.

Against that backdrop, staff conducted a series of meetings that led to the creation of four editions of FIELD's newsletter, the FIELD forum. Three of those newsletters focused on a specific institutional model; the fourth offered a comparative look at all models represented in the cluster.

Staff also conducted three site visits: to a credit union, a Human Services Organization and a Community Development Corporation. As part of the visit, staff gathered information against a research framework and convened other grantees operating under a similar institutional model for a two-day meeting at the site. The meeting allowed the grantees to discuss aspects of their models, experiences, successes and failures — with a view toward generating information for practitioners, funders and policymakers.

Finally, in 2002, following the site visits and publication of three FIELD forums, the entire cluster of grantees met to engage in a comparative analysis across all the models. Discussion at that meeting led to the creation of the fourth FIELD forum.