Next Generation Evidence

This open access book serves as a prequel to Show Me the Evidence: Obama's Fight for Rigor and Results in Social Policy by Ron Haskins and Greg Margolis. While Show Me the Evidence highlighted the importance of prioritizing funding for programs with evidence, Next Generation Evidence looks at how we can build the pipeline of evidence-producing programs. Evidence is remarkably powerful; it helps us understand the needs of communities, make decisions in times of change and scarcity, and build and do more of what works. However, practitioners face a number of structural and practical hurdles to building and using evidence. Traditional evaluation and research methods are often not timely, affordable, meaningful, or inclusive for helping practitioners make decisions to increase their impact for people and communities. Too often and for too long, evaluation was a thing done to practitioners and the communities they serve, relegating them to a passive role when they should be regarded as leaders of this work. Worse, their data and evidence has been used against them in disempowering thumbs-up, thumbs-down circumstances, rather than for learning and improvement that leads to impact. Next Generation Evidence features innovative thinking from leaders across policy, philanthropy, research, and practice. Together, these leaders lay out a vision for a stronger, more equitable data and evidence ecosystem that centers on the voices of people and communities most directly impacted by the problems we seek to solve. Throughout the book, case studies featuring practitioners at various stages in their evidence-building journey highlight concrete illustrations of how continuous evidence building can benefit organizations and outcomes for communities. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Brookings Institution.