Specialty Areas
Positive Youth Development
NRC has worked with a variety of youth-serving organizations to measure the effectiveness of programs with such disparate foci as arts education, academic support, conflict resolution, reduced alcohol and drug use, or increased physical activity, among others. We conduct trainings with youth-serving organizations and have written an evaluation handbook to measure youth perceptions about nine outcome domains: academic success, arts and culture, community involvement, core values, cultural respect, healthy lifestyles, life skills, positive life choices and sense of self. We offer our handbook, called the Youth Outcome Toolkit, for free with participation in our Youth Outcome Network. 
The Network includes data from thousands of youth who completed a Youth Outcome Toolkit survey. The Network offers youth-serving agencies comparative information to help interpret survey results, improve programming, evaluate the success of their programs, and to communicate their successes more effectively with funders and other stakeholders.
Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity Prevention
Our evaluation work has been used in numerous studies of physical activity, nutrition and obesity prevention. We have worked with dozens of community based programs to help evaluate change in participant knowledge, attitudes and behaviors related to nutrition, exercise, weight loss and food security. NRC has worked with the Community Food Security Coalition to develop a toolkit to evaluate USDA-funded community food programs and worked with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to develop tools to help measure the results of programs related to physical activity and nutrition. We are the evaluators of The Colorado Trust’s Healthy People 2010 Obesity Prevention evaluation, a study measuring the sustained behavior change of participants from 17 community based organizations working in the areas of physical activity, nutrition and diabetes prevention.
Rural Health
NRC has worked with the USDA, rural health organizations and foundations to evaluate programs offered to rural populations in the areas of mental health, access, economic self-sufficiency, life skills, food security and more. We have conducted a variety of process evaluations through methods such as key informant interviews, analysis of service indicator data and participant demographics, surveys of networking and collaboration and focus groups on best practices. We have measured participant satisfaction and outcomes and have developed tools for rural health organizations to collect their own data on program effectiveness. As part of our work in food security, we have developed an outcome handbook, an evaluation toolkit and we conduct annual trainings with grantees to build evaluation capacity.
Health
NRC has worked with foundations and all levels of government to evaluate programs aimed at improving the health of residents. We have evaluated the quality of care in networks of palliative care providers, measured end-of-life decision making in physicians, gauged the effectiveness of learning circles to improve the care for infants in at-risk families, and evaluated the success of community based programs to improve nutrition, increase physical activity and prevent obesity. We have worked with a variety of non-profit organizations to help evaluate the effectiveness of the programs at reducing teen pregnancy, decreasing STDs, improving mental health, increasing access to healthy foods, decreasing accidental injuries and improving access to health care service and providers.
Community Safety
NRC has worked with a variety of local governments and community based organizations to evaluate community programs. We have assessed resident satisfaction with community policing and fire prevention. We have developed evaluation blueprints to measure the effectiveness of interpersonal violence prevention programs, evaluated changes made in the life of victims as a result of sheltering and worked with school counselors to measure sexual violence in adolescents. We have conducted a number of evaluations of victim reconciliation programs, including the development of software to store and analyze restorative justice evaluation data. We have measured the impact of after-school programming on youth delinquent behavior as well as college campus student’s knowledge, attitudes and use of alcohol.
Education
NRC has conducted a number of evaluations related to education and academic performance. We have worked on community consensus of school district effectiveness and interpretation of standardized test scores. We have worked extensively in the field of after-school programming and have worked with other community based organizations seeking to improve academic performance in youth, retention, graduation and college admission.
Although our evaluation work has taken us to many corners of service provision, NRC has developed a strong sub-specialty in evaluation in a number of content specific areas such as positive youth development, obesity prevention, community safety, education, health care, and rural health.
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