Blog Posts - Blue Marble Evaluation

The Interconnection Between the Global and the Personal: A Blue Marble Perspective

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / March 4, 2020 / Health & Well-Being, mqpmusings, Principle 1: Global Thinking, Principle 12: Skin-in-the-game, Principle 2: Anthropocene as Context, Principle 6: GLOCAL, reflective practice

At the end of February, as part of a speaking engagement on Blue Marble Evaluation in Charlotte, North Carolina, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of community leaders, activists, and scholars to discuss how we collectively and individually approach the climate emergency in our own work and our lives. The group included […]

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Evaluation Criteria for Transformation Webinar Q&A

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / March 3, 2020 / DAC Criteria, Evaluation Criteria, Principle 3: Transformative Engagement, Transformation

Webinar Recording available here. Click here to read a summary blog about webinar with resource links. CHAT QUESTIONS and FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS (in red) and PARTICIPANTS’ COMMENTS, WITH MQP RESPONSES Questions (in red) grouped together. There are many questions so I’ll try to keep responses short. This is an ongoing dialogue. Will the PowerPoint be available? MQP: The

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Food and Agriculture Systems: A Blue Marble Evaluation Perspective

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / February 5, 2020 / Agriculture, Food security, Principle 6: GLOCAL, Sustainability

In writing about transformation in Blue Marble Evaluation, I quoted Million Belay, coordinator of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, who said: “At last there is a realization that change, fundamental change in the way we are living, is needed.” I met Million at an international conference on Transformation hosted by the University of Dundee in 2017.

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The Global Alliance for the Future of Food Makes History with Formal Adoption of a Theory of Transformation

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / January 30, 2020 / Agriculture, MQP Musings, Principle 13: Theory of Transformation, Principle 3: Transformational Engagement

The third overarching Blue Marble Evaluation principles concerns transformational engagement: Engage and evaluate consistent with the magnitude, direction, and speed of transformations needed and envisioned. That leads to the Blue Marble Theory of Transformation operating principle: Design and evaluate transformation based on an evidence-supported theory of transformation. For the last 25 years, design, planning and evaluation have

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Blue Marble Evaluation: Thinking in Transformational Ways at a Time When We Urgently Need To

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / January 17, 2020 / Agriculture, Collaborative Crop Research Programme, International Development, Principle 2: Anthropocene as Context, Principle 3: Transformative Engagement, Principle 6: GLOCAL, Sustainability

This article by McKnight Foundation International program director Jane Maland Cady was originally published by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food and adapted here with permission. Summary: The McKnight Foundation has supported the first of the Blue Marble Evaluation innovators — from Michael Quinn Patton and the World Savvy team, to the evaluators embedded in the Global

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Moving at the Speed of Trust: The Role of Blue Marble Evaluation

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / January 6, 2020 / evaluation science, mqpmusings, polycentric governance, Principle 13: Theory of Transformation

Trust matters for transformation. The Blue Marble theory of transformation hypothesizes that transformation requires multiple actors, networks, organizations, movements, and individuals actively finding common ground thereby magnifying their separate efforts collectively to create critical mass and tipping points. A theory of transformation integrates and aligns multiple theories of change. One important constituent theory of change in support

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Climate Emergency from a Blue Marble Evaluation Perspective

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Michael_Patton / December 12, 2019 / Children & Youth, Climate, climate emergency, MQP Musings, post-truth, Principle 2: Anthropocene as Context, Principle 8: Time being of the essence, Sustainability, youth quake

The 2019 Oxford Dictionary word of the year is “climate emergency.” The word of the year is both retrospective, chosen because of dramatically increased use in both published and social media, but also prospective, for calling attention to the word of the year tends to increase its use. “Climate emergency is defined as ‘a situation in which urgent action

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Michael Recognized as Guilford Press Author of the Month for Blue Marble Evaluation

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / admin / December 6, 2019

Michael Quinn Patton was recognized by Guilford Press, the publisher of Blue Marble Evaluation: Premises and Principles, as the December 2019 author of the month. In his interview, Michael shares, “Blue Marble refers to the iconic image of the Earth from space without borders or boundaries, a whole Earth perspective. Many people, organizations, and networks are

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Blue Marble Evaluation Beta!

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / admin / November 1, 2019

Welcome to the new beta site for Blue Marble Evaluation. The site went live in early November 2019 and we are piloting it through the Spring of 2020. Our goals during this phase are to streamline content, enhance usability, build out the network, and address any bugs or issues that arise. In January 2020, we’ll share our

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Reflections from the World’s First Blue Marble Evaluator

Leave a Comment / Blog Posts / Pablo_Vidueira / October 12, 2019 / Principle 4: Integration

This reflection is an excerpt from the book, Blue Marble Evaluation: Premises and Principles: Being the first-ever Blue Marble Evaluator and doing so with the Global Alliance for the Future of Food is an honor. I could tell you a million things about this, but for now I want to share two personal views that

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