Measuring and Reporting Outreach and Engagement: A Public Value Perspective

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Measuring and Reporting Outreach and Engagement
A Public Value Perspective

• Nancy Franz
• Iowa State University Extension

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Who the Heck is Nancy?

• 31 years with Extension in five states
• Agent, volunteer, department head, district
  liaison, state specialist, project administrator,
  graduate student, administrator
• Youth and adult education in all program areas
• Research in TL and MR engagement

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The Why and What of the Public Value

• The Push for Public Value
• NSF broader impacts
• Measuring Excellence databases
• Program planning and reporting
• Evidence-based movement
• Return on investment movement
• The political context- government relations
• Need more than feeling good about Outreach and
  Engagement

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Our Take Home Message

• Evidence-based movement
• ROI on funding
• Public value movement

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What is Public Value?

• The value of a program to those who do not
  directly benefit from the program.
• Laura Kalambokidis
• University of Minnesota Extension

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What is Private Value?

• Personal value derived directly from an
  Extension educational opportunity.
• Nancy Franz
• ISUEO

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Engagement Value Stories

• Teen court
• Private youth stay out of court
• Public reduced court and human services costs
• Citizens leadership academy
• Private gain public speaking skills
• Public sustain civil society through leadership
  development

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Common Public Values

• Decrease health care costs
• Decrease public costs related to risky behavior
• Decrease public costs related to financial
  problems
• Decrease public response costs to emergencies and
  disasters
• Increase academic success for a highly qualified
  and productive workforce
• Decrease public costs related to dependency on
  local, state, and federal services
• Increase health and ability of public safety
  workers

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Institutional Public Value Steps

• Understand the difference between public and
  private value
• Create the case and urgency for public value
• Embrace public value in addition to private value
• List and prioritize Extension public values
• Develop public value stories
• Describing and sharing public value is the norm

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Scholar Steps to Public Value

• Map and prioritize programs
• Determine impact to measure
• Collect and analyze data
• Tell the public value story (tie to research and
  evidence)

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Common Public Value Concerns

• Damage control for nontrainable decision makers
• Fear of generalization
• Fixation on randomized control trails
• Lack of contributional data
• Fear of change

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Public Movement Lessons

• Be proactive
• Start with early adopters-forget resistors
• Build urgency using real stories
• Seek professional development
• Select public value champions
• Develop a wide variety of public value examples

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More Lessons

• Engage clientele
• Engage researchers
• Create a strong statistical and qualitative data
  base
• Bridge public value groups using middle managers
  and boundary spanners
• Be selective on programs to show PV

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More Lessons

• Develop PV templates
• Use PV to integrate campus and field perspectives
• Involve economists, program evaluators,
  communications staff, and stakeholders
• Reward those embracing the movement

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4-H Public Value

• 4-H had 3,666 4-H officers who were seniors in
  the last year. They showed gains in leadership
  skills while occupying these leadership roles. At
  an average salary of 45,400 annually for a
  public leader this provides over 16 billion in
  leadership services to communities in the last
  year. (Texas agrilife extension)

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Ag Public Value

• As a result of pesticide certification training,
  15,995 private applicators and 9,315 commercial
  applicators store, handle, transport, and apply
  pesticides safely, which benefits the citizens of
  the state and the environment. The training
  directly results in jobs retained or created with
  9,315 commercial applicators able to obtain jobs
  or continue working in their current pesticide
  application position. At an average salary of
  45,000/year, this is worth new and retained
  employment worth 420 million. (ISUEO)

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Ag Public Value

• The disposal of pesticide containers poses a
  significant challenge to agricultural producers
  and other pesticide users. Improperly rinsed
  containers are a public health and financial
  threat. Many containers end up in local waste
  systems. As a result of Extensions pesticide
  container recycling program, 853,730 properly
  rinsed plastic pesticide containers properly were
  collected from farms, licensed pesticide dealers
  and pest control companies, golf courses, and
  homeowners. (VCE)

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FCS Public Value

• Parenting programs reduced public costs with 75
  of families of children at risk of entering
  foster care did not enter foster care within one
  year of completing a parenting education program
  and of those completing the Juvenile Justice
  Parenting Program, 85 of their youth did not
  acquire a criminal charge within one year of the
  program. (VCE)

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Public Value Story Template

• Success Story Title(Issue being addressed -
  include public value reference in title)
• Relevance(Why is it important to address this
  issue with education? Include research,
  statistics, and trends to support importance of
  issue. What are the desired changes?)
• Response (Outputs - Identify activities, of
  clients reached, publications, services,
  workshops, etc. used to address the issue.)
• Results (Outcomes Identify specific behavior
  and condition changes, how outcomes were
  measured, and relevance to public value)

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• Your public value adventure awaits!
• QA