Extension Master Gardener National Program Evaluation and Data Collection

The Extension Master Gardener (EMG) program exists in 49 states, the District of Columbia as well as Canada and South Korea.  It is not clearly known how many EMGs there are in the U.S. or how many hours of service are given in a year's time.  In the U.S. the collection of impact data for the EMG program is up to each individual state; yearly data for the national EMG program is not collected.  The last national data collection survey was completed in 2009 with 40 states responding; the EMG CSREES liaison provided leadership for this effort.  In March 2015, the EMG National Committee distributed a survey in order to update the 2009 report.  The 2014 report was completed and distributed in March 2015.  This report shows only 38 of the 49 state programs reporting, indicating more than 80,000 EMGs donating more than 5,292,130 hours of service nationwide.  Because of the fact that there is no consistent data collection tool for the U.S., the reported data doesn't completely represent the EMG program in terms of number of volunteers, hours donated, etc.  This session will discuss the challenges in national data collection and impact reporting and the need for a national data collection tool.  Reporting impact is critical to the strength of the program nationally.  The EMG has developed a task force to address this issue; the task force will create a consistent data collection instrument that can be adopted by each state EMG program.  The EMG will be responsible for implementing this data collection and impact reporting.