The Bell Creek Consulting team brings a multi-framework approach to workforce development evaluation that centers adaptability, equity, and cultural context. For this KF engagement we would integrate the following evaluation frameworks and approaches to ensure findings are credible, actionable, and community-grounded:​

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Primary framework: Developmental Evaluation

• Key Characteristics: Developmental evaluation is designed for innovation and complexity. It emphasizes real-time feedback, adaptive learning, and supporting emergent strategies rather than static summative judgments.

• Application: Workforce development ecosystems are dynamic. Developmental evaluation will guide how findings are communicated back to funders, policymakers, and community partners in real-time to adapt strategies. For example, early data trends about employer engagement could inform adjustments to outreach approaches while the landscape study is still underway.

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Additional frameworks we would draw from include

​Culturally Responsive Evaluation (CRE)

• Key Characteristics: CRE emphasizes centering the cultural knowledge, values, and lived experiences of diverse stakeholders, especially historically marginalized groups. It ensures evaluation questions, data collection, and interpretation reflect the voices of those most affected.

• Application to Workforce Landscape Study: CRE will shape stakeholder engagement and data collection strategies to account for Kansas City’s diverse workforce communities. For example, interviews and focus groups will intentionally include perspectives from underrepresented populations, ensuring KPIs such as “access to apprenticeships” or “entry into high-demand sectors” are interpreted through a cultural and community lens.

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Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF)

• Key Characteristics: EEF calls for evaluation to be in service of equity by examining structural and systemic drivers of inequities. It emphasizes shifting power dynamics in evaluation design, implementation, and reporting.

• Application: EEF will guide the framing of outcomes beyond individual success metrics to also include systems-level KPIs:

  • Employer readiness to adopt equitable workforce strategies

  • Policy and funding alignment with inclusion goals

  • Community perceptions of fairness and access in workforce pathways
    EEF ensures the study not only reports “what is working” but also why and for whom it works.

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Transformative Evaluation

• Key Characteristics: Rooted in critical theory, transformative evaluation is explicitly oriented toward advancing social justice, challenging inequities, and shifting paradigms. It values stakeholder empowerment in the evaluation process.

• Application: This approach will inform how we interpret data related to disparities in training, employment, and retention. For example, when examining outcomes such as “number of apprenticeships secured,” a transformative lens ensures we assess whether the system is perpetuating or dismantling inequities. It pushes the study to ask not just “are programs effective?” but “are programs just and inclusive?”

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Integrated Strategy for KPIs and Outcomes

By combining these frameworks, we will:

• Surface Relevant KPIs – Engage stakeholders to co-define key performance indicators that are meaningful at individual, organizational, and systems levels.

• Contextualize Outcomes – Use CRE and EEF to interpret workforce data (e.g., training completion rates, job placement rates) in light of community histories, systemic inequities, and cultural strengths.

• Adapt in Real Time – Apply developmental evaluation to adjust study activities as emerging findings highlight gaps or opportunities.

• Advance Equity and Justice – Employ transformative evaluation to ensure recommendations promote not just efficiency, but equity, inclusion, and long-term systems change.

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This multi-framework approach ensures the landscape study will

• Provide credible KPIs on workforce supply and demand.

• Illuminate equity gaps and opportunities for systemic improvement.

• Support adaptive strategy-making throughout the study.

• Generate findings that are not only actionable but also aligned with the funder’s values around equity, inclusion, and sustainable impact.​​

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