SSRC Library

The complex and interrelated challenges that place-based initiatives such as Promise Neighborhoods address require that many stakeholders be involved, informed, and inspired to act. Stakeholders must understand and buy into the initiative’s priority challenges, responsive strategies, and overall goals. This engagement is vital to effective implementation, including evaluating what works, deciding what to sustain, and investing in the most potent strategies. Effective messaging is necessary for creating a common understanding and mobilizing necessary action from the community. This guide is designed for project teams working on place-based initiatives as a resource for establishing a communications strategy and developing compelling stories about their work. It offers a useful framework for stakeholder engagement and an application of this framework to the Promise Neighborhoods context. The guide also includes a resource list with tools and references that readers can access to support the actions recommended throughout the guide. (Author abstract)

This brief summarizes the experiences of leaders and staff from eight career pathways programs that participated in the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Evaluation. Based on firsthand accounts, the brief describes how staff perceived the benefits of participating in the randomized controlled trial (RCT) evaluation, the challenges they experienced—in particular recruiting study participants and implementing its random assignment procedures—and how they overcame challenges. The brief then describes lessons staff learned from participating in PACE. The insights presented below will be helpful for future evaluation teams as they approach potential study sites, as well as for programs considering participating in a rigorous evaluation. (Edited author introduction)