Measurement & Evaluation Moves the Needle Forward for Inclusion Efforts

A key component of Fresno DRIVE’s mission to create an economy for all is measuring the efforts of initiative partners and evaluating their impact across Fresno County. Fresno DRIVE is made up of 14 initiatives across the areas of People, Place and Prosperity. These initiatives tackle different aspects of economic mobility including upskilling, civic engagement and local wealth creation through collaboration and sharing of resources.

The Measurement & Evaluation (M&E) team at CVCF helps to support Fresno DRIVE by collecting and evaluating data alongside the nonprofit partners that make up the Fresno DRIVE initiatives. Through the DRIVE Surveys, initiatives track how their work supports inclusion, community engagement and cultural competence. 

The DRIVE Surveys ask initiative leaders to answer the question, “Are our community engagement efforts reaching the residents most impacted by the experiences my program aims to address?”

Evaluating the initiatives’ community engagement efforts has shown that the needle is moving toward greater economic inclusion. “One of the important things we ask is who is being engaged and impacted and what demographic information is being collected,” said CVCF Senior Researcher Chelsea Chapman, Ph,D. “By asking these types of questions, we get a sense of who is under engaged.” Outreach efforts shifted due to this data. In 2023, youth were identified as the most under engaged group. Two years later, youth are now the most engaged group across the DRIVE Initiatives. The survey also identified other groups who community engagement should be expanded to including LGBTQ+, Indigenous communities and unhoused populations. The hope is that by identifying groups that are not currently included in outreach efforts, DRIVE’s initiatives can broaden their scope and intentionally gear community engagement efforts to underrepresented demographics.

The DRIVE Surveys also highlight the substantial growth the initiatives have achieved and showcase how they are building capacity to further their missions. For example, 96 percent of the initiatives represented are measuring at least one form of demographic data such as gender, race or ethnicity for the populations they serve — with 66 percent collecting two or more forms of demographic data. By consciencely measuring the demographics of who they engage, the initiatives can evaluate and redirect their advocacy efforts to create transformative change for their communities more effectively. Most notably, Fresno DRIVE initiatives increased outreach to the residents most impacted by their services from 78 percent in 2023 to 96 percent in 2025.    

The DRIVE Surveys are one portion of M&E’s larger goal to track economic and social mobility in Fresno. The M&E team also performs traditional program evaluation and monitors progress across Fresno through the Fresno Mobility Metrics Data Dashboard. To go deeper on the results of the DRIVE Program Surveys, visit Fresno DRIVE’s website, and stay tuned for more information on the forthcoming results of the DRIVE Racial Equity Survey results.