Testimonial from a 2021 Participant in Nashua

Four Testimonials from the 2022 Program

Bill Barberg, a co-founder of the Population Health Learning Collaborative, is the President and Founder of InsightFormation, Inc., a Minnesota-based consulting and technology company that helps communities, regions, and states address complex social and health issues that require multi-stakeholder collaboration. His deep background in strategy implementation has been featured in dozens of conference presentations, papers, and webinars.

Bill was selected to write the chapter on “Implementing Population Health Strategies” for the book, “Solving Population Health Problems through Collaboration” (Routledge, 2017). His recommendations for using strategy maps is featured as a core recommendation in the new report by the National Academy of Public Administration. Bill recently co-authored a paper for the Journal of Change Management on “Leading Social Transformations to Create Public Value and Advance the Common Good”.

Michael Quinn Patton is the Founder and CEO of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, an independent organizational development, and program evaluation organization.

He has authored numerous books on evaluation, including Blue Marble Evaluation (2019), Principles-Focused Evaluation (2018), Facilitating Evaluation (2018), Developmental Evaluation (2010), and Utilization-Focused Evaluation (2008). He has also edited or contributed articles to numerous books and journals, including several volumes of New Directions in Program Evaluation, on subjects as diverse as culture and evaluation, how and why language matters, HIV/AIDS research and evaluation systems, extension methods, feminist evaluation, teaching using the case method, evaluating strategy, utilization of evaluation, and valuing. His creative nonfiction book, Grand Canyon Celebration: A Father–Son Journey of Discovery, was a finalist for Minnesota Book of the Year.

Patton has received both the Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for “outstanding contributions to evaluation use and practice” and the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award for lifetime contributions to evaluation theory awarded by the American Evaluation Association. The Society for Applied Sociology honored him with the 2001 Lester F. Ward Award for Outstanding Contributions to Applied Sociology. He was President of the American Evaluation Association in 1988 and Co-Chair of the 2005 International Evaluation Conference in Toronto sponsored jointly by the American and Canadian evaluation associations. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board for The Foundation Review. 

Jennifer Medlock has been a Research & Policy Manager at PolicyWise for Children & Families since 2018. In this role, she has led policy and evaluation projects across a variety of topic areas, such as youth employment, rural mental health, suicide respite centres, healthy aging, and youth homelessness.  Prior to this, she was the Project Manager for All In for Youth, a city-wide collaboration led by United Way of Calgary and Area aiming to improve high school completion rates in Calgary. Her focus in all of this work has been to inform and promote effective social policy and practice to improve the well-being of children, families, and communities.

Jen enjoys designing and implementing complex projects, and has developed a strong background in evaluation, stakeholder engagement and project management. She has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Guelph, and a Master’s and PhD in Communication from the University of Calgary.

Bethany White, Evaluation Manager at United Way of Calgary and Area. Bethany specializes in social research, evaluation and impact assessment. She is skilled in policy and social research, data analysis, data visualization, knowledge translation, summative, formative and developmental evaluation, and technical writing.

Liz Fitzgerald is a Director of Community Impact at United Way of Greater Nashua based in Nashua, New Hampshire. Liz has focused her career on strengthening communities with a variety of health and human service nonprofits, including three tours of duty with United Way.  Over the last 3 decades, Liz has successfully mobilized more than 300,000 volunteers and personally helped to secure upwards of 30 million dollars to address basic needs in Health, Education, Economic Mobility, and Protecting the Environment. Currently, Liz current works with United Way of Greater Nashua as the Director of Community Impact managing the community needs assessment and investment processes and playing a leadership role in UWGN’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, the Smart Start Early Childhood Coalition and FEMA and Homeland Security’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP).

Nora Murphy Johnson, CEO of Inspire to Change, is one of the leading consultants, authors, and trainers on developing principles-driven strategic visions for social change,. Her recent book, Creative Evaluation & Engagement is a newly revised and expanded version of Michael Quinn Patton's Creative Evaluation (1981), designed for purpose-driven changemakers working towards social justice, equity, and liberation.

Nora has worked closely with Michael Quinn Patton for many years, co-authoring significant books and papers with him on Development Evaluation, and Principles-Focused Developmental Evaluation.