Evaluation of a cross-sector community initiative partnership: Delivering a local sport program

Lisa A. Kihl; Scott Tainsky; Kathy Babiak; Hyejin Bang

doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.01.003

Evaluation of a cross-sector community initiative partnership: Delivering a local sport program

Lisa A. Kihl, Scott Tainsky, Kathy Babiak, Hyejin Bang

Kinesiology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Corporate community initiatives (CCI) are often established via cross-sector partnerships with nonprofit agencies to address critical social problems. While there is a growing body of literature exploring the effectiveness and social impact of these partnerships, there is a limited evaluative research on the implementation and execution processes of CCIs. In this paper, we examined the implementation and operational processes in the delivery of a professional sport organization's CCI initiative using program theory evaluation. The findings showed discrepancies between the associate organization and the implementers regarding understanding and fulfilling responsibilities with performing certain aspects (maintaining accurate records and program marketing) of the service delivery protocol. Despite program stakeholders being satisfied overall with the program delivery, contradictions between program stakeholders' satisfaction in the quality of program delivery was found in critical components (marketing and communications) of the service delivery. We conclude that ongoing evaluations are necessary to pinpoint the catalyst of the discrepancies along with all partners valuing process evaluation in addition to outcome evaluation.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	36-47
Number of pages	12
Journal	Evaluation and Program Planning
Volume	44
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2014.01.003
State	Published - Jun 2014

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The evaluation research site was a small market MLB team located in the Midwest region of the United States. Specifically, the initiative under consideration was the MLB club's RBI program that involved 13–18 year old youth in baseball and softball leagues. The program is a MLB worldwide initiative designed to promote baseball and softball to underserved youth while also encouraging academic participation and achievement, increasing the number of individuals that are skilled to play in college and minor leagues, develop life skills, and valuing teamwork ( Major League Baseball, 2012 ). This particular RBI program was sponsored by the MLB club's Community Fund (the non-profit charitable arm of the team) and had been in existence since 1994.

Keywords

Corporate social responsibility
Partnership evaluation
Program theory
Sport

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Evaluation of a cross-sector community initiative partnership: Delivering a local sport program

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Bibliographical note

Keywords

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