With support from AARP, SAGE the the country’s largest and oldest organization devoted to improving the lives of LGBT older adults, sought to create an intentional intergenerational event to build bridges within the community to talk about aging and care. Building on the success of On the Table SAGE decided to create a national event bringing people together to share food, stories, hopes, and challenges—and to build and strengthen intergenerational relationships. This event, SAGE Table, occured in May 2017, and brought together over 3500 LGBT and allies across over 230 events across the U.S.

SAGE needed a rigorous data collection and analysis program that would help them know who was planning to attend, who did attend, and how they experienced the SAGE Table event. In addition, the results needed to be communicated clearly, and to send a strong signal to board members that rigorous measurement wasn’t an afterthought, but an integral element of the event design and execution.

Our co-authored learning report showcases how the intentional use of a data-driven evaluative strategy results in both immediately interpretable insight regarding what happened but also surfaces data-informed ‘hooks’ and ‘handles’ on possible experimental approaches to guide what could happen.

Back