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Program Evaluation

The American Indian Cancer Foundation's (AICAF) Evaluation Program supports the work of all AICAF teams and programs, providing insight on how to improve our efforts and better serve tribal communities. It establishes and monitors campaign outputs, outcomes, benchmarks, and success stories. The Evaluation Team accomplishes this through the use of logic models, evaluation plans, and reports that are shared with our communities. Analysis of our cancer prevention and screening efforts provides valuable insight into how we can improve programming and better serve our communities.

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AICAF's Indigenous Evaluation Strategies

Like research studies, the field of evaluation has been persistently problematic for many Native communities. Indigenous people suffer from a long history of intrusive studies by outside entities that exploit communities’ cultures and return nothing of benefit.

The American Indian Cancer Foundation (AICAF) Evaluation Plan utilizes the Indigenous Evaluation Framework which is guided by the following principles:

  • Native communities have ways of assessing merit or worth based on traditional values and cultural expressions. This knowledge should inform how evaluation is conducted and used within our communities 
  • Indigenous framing of evaluation incorporates broadly held values while remaining cognizant and responsive to local traditions and cultures
  • By defining evaluation, its meaning, practice, and usefulness in our own terms, we take ownership. We are not merely responding to the requirements imposed by Western practices
  • Evaluation should respect and serve tribal goals for self-determination and sovereignty
  • Evaluation is an opportunity to learn from our programs and effectively use the information to create strong, viable tribal communities

Source: American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Indigenous Evaluation

Additional Resources

As AICAF works to build upon its Indigenous Evaluation Strategies, provided is a list of additional references to help provide further insight. 

 

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For more information on evaluation strategies or to get involved in our program, please contact info@aicaf.org