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Measure What Matters (by Elevate What Matters): Daily Summaries Delivered
by Melissa Chapman Haynes
The purpose and focus of this podcast are to dive into various topics of impact and measurement from the perspectives of evaluators, evaluation funders, and those participating in evaluations. These are three critical and essential perspectives that this podcast will elevate. Join us for lively examples and discussions about how we figure out, within specific contexts, programs, and policies, what to measure. We promise to throw some fun into the mix.
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- 3 days ago39 min
Measure What Matters — Health & Democracy with Angela Fields
Measure What Matters — Health & Democracy with Angela Fields Your zip code shouldn't determine your health — but it does. And so does your access to the ballot. In this episode of Measure What Matters, host Melissa Chapman Haynes sits down with Angela Fields — community health worker, founder of CHW Concepts, and core partner of the Health and Democracy Minnesota Partnership — to unpack the deep, research-backed connection between civic participation and health outcomes. Angela walks listeners through the evidence: states with greater voting access consistently report better health across every measure, from lower uninsured rates to reduced mortality. When voting gets harder, health disparities widen — especially for Black, Latino, and American Indian communities. The conversation covers the Health and Democracy Index, restrictive voting policies and their disproportionate impact, the five-step voting plan her coalition developed, and practical tools like the democracy postcard designed to make civic engagement accessible to everyone. From engaging college students who think "politics doesn't affect me" to the role of community health workers as bridge builders between communities and systems, this episode makes the case that health is always on the ballot — and that your vote is a health intervention. This episode was recorded during the 2026 midterm election season.
- Sep 17, 202638 min
Community Health Work Towards Thriving Communities
Description In this episode of Measure What Matters, host Melissa Chapman Haynes sits down with Angela Fields — community health worker, certified doula, founder of CHW Concepts, and creative director of Pathways to Wellness Community Health Initiatives — to explore what happens when we measure impact from the community's perspective instead of from the top down. The conversation opens with a deceptively simple question: Who gets to decide what "working" actually means? From there, Angela traces her 35-plus-year journey in community health — from growing up as the apprentice of her mother, a community navigator in Chicago, to helping build the community health worker profession in Minnesota, to launching a statewide CHW Awareness Week recognized by Governor Tim Walz. Angela shares what impact looks like when you're boots on the ground: it's the patient who finds you in the grocery store to say their life changed. It's a community that's thriving, not just surviving. It's the moment when 45 organizations and multiple elected officials show up on a Saturday because of the trust you've built over decades. The episode is a powerful reminder that communities often know what's working — and what isn't — long before the data catches up, and that the most meaningful evaluation starts with simply asking the people whose lives are affected: Did this help? What changed for you? Episode Summary The Core Question: Funders, health systems, and evaluators each define success differently — but too often, the people most affected by a program or policy are left out of that conversation entirely. Melissa and Angela explore what changes when community voices are centered from the very beginning. Angela's Story: Angela credits her late mother, Barbara Fields, a community navigator and community engager in Chicago, for introducing her to systems-level thinking at a young age. After briefly pursuing teaching and then nursing, Angela found her true calling in human services and became one of the first community health workers certified under Minnesota's 2007 reimbursable legislation. Building a Profession: When the 2008 economic rollback eliminated CHW positions funded by federal grants, Angela and her peers — armed with nothing but their voices — stumbled into advocacy and policy work. They learned to write letters, meet elected officials, and organize at the Capitol. Out of that movement grew a peer circle, a newsletter, a registry, and conferences that helped define the CHW profession in Minnesota. In 2025, Governor Tim Walz proclaimed August 25–31 as CHW Awareness Week in the state. What Impact Means: For Angela, impact goes far beyond spreadsheets. It's seeing someone gain knowledge, build confidence, and access resources they didn't have before. It's the follow-up in the grocery store where a former client says, "Thank you — because of you, I'm here now." It's watching a struggling community not just survive, but thrive. Meaningful Community Engagement: True engagement means being present beyond the clinical walls — listening, valuing lived experience as expertise, compensating people fairly for their time, and giving the community real power in decisions that affect them. Melissa shares a story from her time at the University of Minnesota, where a nonprofit leader's frustration revealed the gap between institutional intentions and community reality. What Communities Know Before the Data: Communities know when families are struggling with housing, food insecurity, or broken trust in the system — long before reports validate it. The data can confirm what's happening, but it shouldn't take a dashboard to listen to what the community is already saying. Qualities for the Work: Angela names the personal qualities that matter most: curiosity, open-mindedness, optimism, empathy (not sympathy), and letting your values guide you. She shares her own health journey — a pre-diabetic diagnosis that realigned her as a role model, and a spinal injury that redirected her career — as proof that lived experience deepens empathy and authenticity. Pathways to Wellness: Angela recently launched Pathways to Wellness Community Health Initiatives, drawing on decades of professional relationships. At the August launch event, over 45 organizations, 10 businesses, 6 physicians, and visits from the offices of Senator Amy Klobuchar, Representative Liz Lee, and Senator Fong came together — serving more than 250 community members and families. Angela describes the moment she started crying, overwhelmed not by burden but by fullness: "Your cup just fills, and it runs over." The One Thing to Change: If Angela could change one thing about how funders and evaluators determine whether they're making a difference, it's simple: Go back to the community. Ask them. The people most affected should have a voice in defining what success looks like and what those metrics actually
- Aug 1, 202630 min
Program Evaluation Behind the Scenes: Dr. Liz Hollingworth on What Gets Measured, Why It Matters, and How Funding Shapes Outcomes
Host Melissa introduces the University of Iowa’s measurement legacy (Iowa Testing Programs, E.F. Lindquist, and ACT) and interviews Dr. Liz Hollingworth, professor and director of the Center for Evaluation and Assessment (CEA). Hollingworth recounts her path from K–12 teaching to working at Iowa Testing Programs during No Child Left Behind, developing leadership coursework on standards-based education and advocacy, and moving into program evaluation under Don Yarbrough before becoming CEA director for 11 years. She describes CEA’s work evaluating diverse programs, including a canceled cancer research pipeline program defunded for privileging minoritized students, an RCT of a computer-based third-grade reading intervention across multiple states under a $10M federal grant, and evaluations of mini-grants for women farmers. They discuss who decides what gets measured, the difference between evaluation and research, budgeting 10–15% for evaluation, handling politically sensitive findings, and concerns about frozen federal funding and canceled grant reviews.
- Jul 21, 202643 min
Whole Family Work at Wilder: Measuring What Matters Beyond Outputs
Whole Family Work at Wilder: Measuring What Matters Beyond Outputs Host Melissa introduces the podcast’s focus on how evaluation grew from the 1960s war on poverty and welcomes Dr. Wanda Walker and Kristin Dillon to discuss the Wilder Foundation’s Whole Families approach in the Twin Cities. Walker shares 30+ years in anti-poverty and 2Gen work and explains how Wilder has spent the past seven years formalizing Whole Family as an organization-wide philosophy, not a single program, emphasizing “no wrong door,” integrated services, and reducing internal barriers that force families to repeat traumatic stories. Dillon describes Wilder’s unique structure—direct services, policy advocacy, and a research arm—and outlines infrastructure investments such as a Whole Family theory of change, assumptions, and a family-facing visual. They discuss measuring progress through culture change and four shared domains across programs: family agency, holistic needs met, service satisfaction/access, and improved wellbeing/stability, plus the impact of flexible dollars via guaranteed income and a family investment fund. More than 30 reports and documents are located here for viewers who want to dive into more details: https://www.wilder.org/wilder_topic/whole-families-or-2-gen/?ucpage=3 00:00 Wilder-Whole Families 01:19 Guest Introductions 07:39 Theory of Change 12:43 Building Blocks & Integrated Services 22:59 Measuring What Matters 32:21 Hopes for the Future Thank you to our guests! Dr. Wanda Walker, MSW, DHS, wanda.walker@wilder.org Kristin Dillon, PhD, kristin.dillon@wilder.org
- Jul 20, 202619 min
The Human Side of Data Collection
Melissa launches the kickoff episode of the Measure What Matters podcast, reflecting on Georgia Lupe’s quote, “Data are data, but how we gather them and use them is entirely human,” and how evaluation choices shape what we learn. Drawing on her early-2000s experience evaluating the multibillion-dollar Early Reading First program under No Child Left Behind, she explains how different stakeholders—funders, program staff, teachers, parents, and children—wanted different evidence, and how focusing only on funder-required outcomes could miss innovative play-based learning, nuanced professional development, and stakeholder buy-in. She outlines four core questions for the series: who decides what gets measured, what is measured, how it’s measured (including credibility and context), and how data are interpreted and used. She invites diverse voices to future guest episodes and encourages listeners to engage and share. 00:00 Quote That Sparked It 00:43 Early Reading First Formative Experience 02:10 Many Stakeholders, Many Questions 03:49 What Gets Priority? 04:22 Podcast Mission And Guests 07:46 Four-Part Discussion Framework 08:01 Who Is At The Table 09:11 What We Measure And Why 10:13 Convertible Versus Minivan (Merit v Worth) 12:38 How To Measure Credibly 14:09 Dirt Under Fingernails 15:21 Using, Sharing, and Interpreting Data 17:01 Wrap Up And Call To Action 18:34 Outro And Credits
About Measure What Matters (by Elevate What Matters)
The purpose and focus of this podcast are to dive into various topics of impact and measurement from the perspectives of evaluators, evaluation funders, and those participating in evaluations. These are three critical and essential perspectives that this podcast will elevate. Join us for lively examples and discussions about how we figure out, within specific contexts, programs, and policies, what to measure. We promise to throw some fun into the mix.
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