The Evaluation Center

09/23/2026

Want to join the club? 👀

We’re looking for creative, clever, evaluation-inspired sticker designs for The Evaluation Center’s annual Sticker Contest!

🎨 Create a design
📬 Submit it by October 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET
🏆 Win 100 stickers featuring your design + a spot in our AEA booth's sticker collection!

Learn more and submit your designs here: https://wmich.edu/evaluation/stickers

09/01/2026

🎨 Got a great evaluation sticker idea? We want to see it!

Our annual Evaluation Sticker Contest is back, and if you've been to a conference with us lately, you know how much fun it is to see what new designs make it onto our sticker display!

Submit your design for a chance to have it printed with your name, featured on our social media, and distributed at our booth at the American Evaluation Association conference in November.

Bonus: The winner gets 100 free stickers featuring their design!

🗓️ Submit by October 1 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.
Learn more and submit your designs here:

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07/09/2026

Evaluation Café may be on summer break, but we're revisiting some of our favorite conversations from the past year.

This week, we're highlighting "Program Maturity for Community-Based Organizations: How Finance, Evaluation, and Design Intertwine" with Michele Girard, founder of Ivanhoe Development.

In this session, Michele explores the realities community-based organizations face when approaching evaluation, especially those with limited financial resources. Through case studies from Native, Latinx, immigrant, and Black-led organizations, she shares practical strategies and introduces tools like Risk Tolerance and Evaluation Triage to help organizations assess their capacity and make thoughtful evaluation decisions.

Whether you're an evaluator, nonprofit leader, or simply interested in building stronger evaluation practices, this recording offers practical insights you can apply in your own work.

🎥 Watch the recording here:

Program Maturity for Community-Based Organizations: How finance, ev...

06/04/2026

Have you attended an Evaluation Café session during the 2025–26 season?

As we begin planning for next year, we'd love to hear from you. Your feedback helps us understand what's working, identify opportunities for improvement, and shape future conversations that are relevant and useful to the evaluation community.

Our anonymous survey takes just 1–2 minutes to complete.

Thank you for being part of the Evaluation Café community and helping us continue to learn, grow, and improve: https://wmich.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4IQf5tXi9ru2IpU

03/27/2026

Join an expert-led Evaluation Planning Retreat where you'll receive the guidance, time, and support you need to build a meaningful evaluation plan for your initiative or organization. It's ideal for teams ready to work together to turn data into insights and action.

📅 May 11-15, 2026
📍 The Fetzer Center, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Team-friendly pricing, with additional discounts for Western Michigan University faculty and staff!

03/10/2026

📣 Don't miss out on our next Evaluation Café event!

We will be joined by Aaron Kates, lead evaluation consultant at Effect X LLC, for the presentation, "Trauma-Informed Evaluation: Evidence, Theory, and Practice."

📅 Date: Wednesday, March 18
⏰ Time: Noon EST
📍 Location: Zoom (Virtual) or 4410 Ellsworth Hall (In-person)
👉 Register to attend virtually: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/6tNt_YAeRtSh0iKdoJtDPA #/registration

02/25/2026

Save the Date: Evaluation Planning Retreat

Join us in Kalamazoo, MI, for a five-day, hands-on evaluation planning retreat designed to help teams build evaluation tools they can use immediately.

Whether your initiative is brand new or well underway, you’ll leave with:

• A clear evaluation plan to measure your impact
• Ready-to-use tools
• A plan to learn from and communicate your impact

📅 May 11-15
🕘 9 a.m.–5 p.m. EDT
📍 Fetzer Center, Western Michigan University

👉 Registration is now open. Learn more and save your spot:

Build a strong evaluation plan in one week If you’ve been wanting to use data and evaluation to strengthen your program or organization but haven’t had the time, support, or clarity to make it happen, the Evaluation Planning Retreat is for you. Register Now Join us May 11–15, 2026, in Kalamazo...

02/20/2026

You know we love data and evaluation-themed stickers 📊✨

Check out the chart to see how our stickers ranked in popularity with 2025 American Evaluation Association conference attendees.

Ready to join the fun? Our 2026 Evaluation Sticker Contest is officially open, and we’d love to see your designs! Submit yours here: https://wmich.edu/evaluation/stickers

Working on completing your collection—or want to share some with colleagues? You can request up to three stickers by sending us a self-addressed stamped envelope (yes, that delightfully retro method still works 😉). Not sure how? We’ve got you covered: https://www.wikihow.com/Send-an-S.A.S.E.-(Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope)

Send your sticker requests and SASE to:
Samantha Ho**er
The Evaluation Center
1903 W. Michigan Ave. MS 5237
Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5237

02/17/2026

📣 Don't miss out on our next Evaluation Café event!

We will be joined by Kurt Wilson, president of Effect X LLC, for the presentation, "Human Centered Evaluation: Introduction to an Emerging Evaluation Lens Providing Practical Guidance to Address the Messy Complexity of Humanity."

📅 Date: Wednesday, February 25
⏰ Time: Noon EST
📍 Location: Zoom (Virtual) or 4410 Ellsworth Hall (In-person)
👉 Register to attend virtually: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/HMwZS2r4QpqUjj_0WqK08Q #/registratio

02/14/2026

At The Evaluation Center, we take EVALentine’s Day very seriously. 💌

We love taking time to let our colleagues know how much they're appreciated by passing around evaluation-themed Valentine's Day cards.

And we’re sending EVALentines beyond our walls, too. ❤️
To our partners, collaborators, clients, and community members, thank you for trusting us, learning with us, and building a stronger evaluation practice together.

Evaluation may be about data, but at its heart, it’s about people. We appreciate you.