Expert & Affordable Evaluation for Mentoring Programs
Get the Evaluation that Serves Your Program Best
Evaluation should look different for every program. If you are just getting started, you need a coach to ensure it is a positive experience—manageable, useful, and cost-effective. Are you experiencing pushback from staff and youth or misaligned expectations from a funder? You need a facilitator who finds the win-win for key stakeholders and builds buy-in for the evaluation that serves your program best. If your program is ready for a highly rigorous evaluation that seeks to show what would have happened if youth had not received the mentoring, you need an evaluation specialist.
Benefit from Experience & Recognized Excellence
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Since 1996, I’ve helped mentoring programs use qualitative and quantitative methods to strengthen services and demonstrate outcomes. Decades of experience have prepared me to fill the combination of roles that serve each program best.
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I will lead MENTOR’s first full-day program evaluation workshop at the National Mentoring Summit.
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I coauthored the chapters on measuring match quality and other characteristics in both editions of the Handbook of Youth Mentoring.
I Help Practitioners Help Youth
If you need process, outcome, or impact evaluation, contact me to schedule a free consultation and a free quote. Helping you is how I make the most positive difference for youth.
SERVICES
My projects often combine elements of process evaluation and outcome evaluation to generate grounded insight. Use the links below to learn more about what I can do for your program.
OUTCOME & IMPACT EVALUATION
I use the measurement approaches that suit your program best to answer the questions you need answered:
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What are the best outcomes to measure?
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Are youth experiencing expected outcomes?
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What is happening in the relationships with the best outcomes? (What's your program's "secret sauce?")
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What would have happened if served youth had not received the mentoring?
FORMATIVE/PROCESS EVALUATION
I use a variety of approaches--most often interviews--to answer questions about service implementation:
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Are services being delivered as intended?
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How do staff and youth experience the program?
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What barriers and limitations affect services?
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How can the implementation be delivered more efficiently and effectively?
MENTORING SURVEYS
The surveys I coauthored, the Youth Mentoring Survey and the Match Characteristics Questionnaire, are recommended by the National Mentoring Resource Center (NMRC) and used all over the world. I also offer a survey for use with group mentoring programs. Get the surveys and related materials/tools here.
TRAININGS & TOOLS
Is your program seeking to build in-house capacity? I have developed and delivered trainings for every phase of an evaluation. I will lead MENTOR's one-day program evaluation workshop at the 2026 National Mentoring Summit. I have developed many tools your program can adapt and use. Access them here for free.
Why choose me? Here's what clients said...
Hillary Kane (Director), Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND)
"John has been a rock -- for over ten years, he has taken the time to get to know all facets of my program. He doesn't just create surveys and crunch numbers; he spends time -- almost a 360 approach -- getting to know the program staff, the participants, and the groups involved. He has conducted focus groups, helped us track alumni outcomes, developed handbooks and so much more. We have implemented key programmatic innovations that John suggested and ten years later, we have the data to show that our program works."
Gene Bowen & Jack Bookbinder (Founders), Road Recovery
"Our working relationship started out as a means of learning how to effectively gather data to meet the requirements of our federal grants but led to a transformative process of program evaluation for our entire mentoring organization. With much patience, John Harris educated us on the enormous resources we already possessed by involving and engaging our staff, our partnering organizations and most importantly the amazing youth we mentor. John Harris helped Road Recovery validate and empower the mighty voices of all those involved in our mission on the ground which has made us a better, more unified, and ever evolving non-profit organization. Thank you, John Harris! You are certainly an honorary member of the Road Recovery Team!"