Since 2022, the Colorado Health Foundation (CHF) has supported 30 communities with grants funding the planning and construction efforts of community-designed outdoor spaces. CHF’s Equitable Community-Designed Outdoor Spaces grants, ranging in size from $25,000 to $50,000 each, support community design efforts with funding for personnel costs, meeting space needs, stipends for community members, translation, childcare, and other aspects to allow for deeper and more equitable community engagement in the design process.

In 2023, OMNI Institute began evaluating the program’s 2022 funding cohort with the goal of helping CHF understand how these communities engaged in more participatory and collaborative design processes. This case study explores four equitable evaluation insights we gained from the project, ranging from consideration in evaluation design to meeting necessary adjustments during the evaluation with flexibility and agility.