Gov Innovator Podcast
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Gov Innovator Podcast
Insights for Results-Focused Leaders
Recent Episodes
100 episodes
How results-driven contracting improved outcomes for Chicago’s most vulnerable: An interview with Lisa Morrison Butler, former Commissioner, Chicago Department of Family and Support Services – Episode #202
Too often, contracting is seen as a back-office function, even though many government programs are actually implemented with contracted service provid...
Using mindfulness practices for greater self-awareness and self-improvement: Rabbi Marc Margolius, Senior Program Director, Institute for Jewish Spirituality – Episode #201
When we think about what skills leaders need to be successful — such as making good decisions, regulating their emotions and stress, and forming stron...
Career reflections from an evidence leader: An interview with Naomi Goldstein, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Episode #200
To celebrate our 200th interview, we are joined by one of the most respected people within the evidence and evaluation field, Dr. Naomi Goldstein, to...
Colorado’s nation-leading practices in using evidence to guide budget decisions: An interview with Sara Dube, Director, Results First Initiative, The Pew Charitable Trusts – Episode #199
Colorado is a leader in the U.S. in terms of using evidence to guide state budget decisions, so that dollars flow to programs that are effective. It’s...
How state tuition-free college programs are spanning political divides: An interview with Michelle Miller-Adams, Senior Researcher, Upjohn Institute – Episode #198
An important area of innovation within higher-education policy in recent years has been tuition-free college policies — also known as Promise Programs...
How Promise Programs are expanding college access, affordability, and degree attainment: An interview with Elizabeth Bell, Florida State University – Episode #197
Tuition-free college policies have become a cornerstone of policymakers’ efforts to expand college access, affordability, and degree attainment. The m...
Insights about building credible evidence in social policy: An interview with David Anderson, Vice President of Evidence-Based Policy, Arnold Ventures – Episode #196
Arnold Ventures launched its evidence-based policy initiative in 2015 in large part to increase the number of social programs with strong evidence beh...
How Minnesota’s impact evaluation unit supports evidence-based budgeting: An interview with Weston Merrick, Minnesota Management and Budget – Episode #195
Minnesota has been identified by several good-government organizations as one of the leaders in the nation on evidence-based policymaking. The Pew Cha...
Insights on evidence use from Ohio’s Department of Education: An interview with Heather Boughton, Results for America – Episode #194
Ohio’s Department of Education is one of the leading state agencies in the U.S. in terms of its focus on helping and encouraging school leaders to use...
Developing and using agency performance plans: An interview with Elizabeth Funsch, ArundelStat Manager, Anne Arundel County in Maryland – Episode #193
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, has a population of just under 600,000 and is south of Baltimore and East of Washington D.C., with the county seat bein...
Three keys to a successful agency evaluation office: An interview with Susan Jenkins, Director of the Office of Performance and Evaluation, Administration for Community Living, HHS – Episode #192
What does it take to be a successful evaluation office within a public agency? Three things that are important are being trustworthy, being engaging,...
Lessons from New Hope for reducing poverty today: An interview with Kali Grant, Georgetown University, and Julie Kirksick, former New Hope Executive Director – Episode #191
The New Hope Project was an anti-poverty program in the 1990s in Milwaukee that offered a simple but powerful pledge: If participants were willing to...
Evidence-based budgeting in New Mexico: Part 2 interview with Charles Sallee, Deputy Director, Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico – Episode #190
New Mexico state government is a leader in the use of evidence, lead by its Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) that has been a catalyst for evidence-...
Launching LegisSTAT in New Mexico: Part 1 interview with Charles Sallee, Deputy Director, Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico – Episode #189
Last month, New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) did something that that possibly no other legislative committee in the U.S. has done to d...
Leading successful change initiatives: An interview with John Kotter, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School and founder of Kotter International – Episode #188
John Kotter (@JohnPKotter) is one of the most respected thinkers on the topics of leadership and change. He is professor emeritus at the Harvard Busin...
Insights from Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations: An interview with Rakesh Mohan, Director – Episode #187
Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE) was created in 1994 and is a nonpartisan, independent office that serves the Idaho legislature by cond...
Five questions public agencies should ask to put their logic models to work: An interview with Cynthia Phillips, former Acting Chief Evaluation Officer, National Science Foundation – Episode #186
A logic model is a detailed visual representation of an organization or program that expresses the organization’s theory of change. It’s useful for ge...
Three cognitive biases that can influence decision makers’ use of evidence about what works: An interview with Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago – Episode #185
What leads decision makers to decide to implement or scale up a program? Research evidence may be one factor, but, as we know, lots of other factors c...
Insights from Tennessee’s Office of Evidence and Impact: An interview with Christin Lotz, Director – Episode #184
Tennessee’s Office of Evidence and Impact was created in 2019 by Governor Bill Lee. The office works with the Governor’s office and with Tennessee’s e...
Boosting student achievement with high-dosage tutoring: An interview with Carly Robinson and Matthew Kraft, Brown University – Episode #183
A new policy brief examines the research evidence behind tutoring and what design principles for tutoring have shown to be important for boosting K-12...
Launching a behavioral insights community of practice within a public agency: An interview with Melissa Leal, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment – Episode #182
Governments at all levels are increasingly using research findings from behavioral economics and other behavioral sciences to improve program and agen...
How to communicate so that busy people respond and take action: An interview with Todd Rogers, behavioral scientist and professor, Harvard Kennedy School – Episode #181
What evidence-based strategies can you use to more effectively craft communications with practical purposes, so that busy people respond and take need...
How the California Policy Lab is helping state and local agencies tackle homelessness, poverty and other key policy challenges: An interview with Janey Rountree and Evan White, Executive Directors – Episode #180
The California Policy Lab (@CAPolicyLab) was launched in January 2017 with a mission to create partnerships between researchers at two of California’s...
Lessons from HUD about building evidence on important social policy issues: An interview with Calvin Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research, Evaluation and Monitoring at HUD – Episode #179
How can public agencies build credible evidence about what works to help move the needle on important social policy challenges? It’s often a multi-ste...
How federal agencies can use IPAs to bolster evidence capacity and help implement the Evidence Act: An interview with Dayanand Manoli, Professor, Georgetown University – Episode #178
The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (Evidence Act) was enacted in early 2019 and has led a wide range of federal agencies to take new...
The role of North Carolina’s Office of Strategic Partnerships: An interview with Jenni Owen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, North Carolina – Episode #177
North Carolina’s Office of Strategic Partnerships was launched at the end of 2018 under Governor Roy Cooper with a mission to enhance partnerships bet...
Colorado’s performance management strategy under Gov. Hickenlooper: An interview with David Padrino, former Chief Performance Officer, Colorado – Episode #176
The State of Colorado under the previous Governor, John Hickenlooper, had a multifaceted performance-improvement strategy that included performance ma...
King County, Washington’s Equity and Social Justice Strategic Plan: An interview with Arun Sambataro, King County – Episode #175
In King County, Washington, under Executive Dow Constantine and the County Council, equity and social justice has been an important focus of the count...
Investing in what works at the federal level: An interview with Jed Herrmann, Vice President for State and Federal Policy Implementation, Results for America – Episode #174
The nonprofit Results for America has been an important advocate of — and catalyst for — evidence-based policy and decision making over the last decad...
Insights from nearly a decade of CountyStat: An interview with Dave Gottesman, CountyStat Manager, Montgomery County, Maryland – Episode #173
Montgomery County, located just north of Washington D.C. is a leader in the use of performance management, including through its CountyStat initiative...
Unlocking the power of big data to catalyze evidence-based policy: An interview with Amy O’Hara, Georgetown University – Episode #172
Administrative data – in other words, big data produced by public agencies and programs – is a valuable tool for program evaluation, research and anal...
Creating a culture of experimentation within organizations: An interview with Stefan Thomke, Harvard Business School – Episode #171
What insights can public leaders gain from leading companies about building a culture of experimentation? To find out, we’re joined by Stefan Thomke,...
Using behavioral insights to help recruit diverse police candidates: An interview with Elizabeth Linos, University of California, Berkeley – Episode #170
Attracting a police force from diverse backgrounds is one important step in ensuring that citizens are well served by their police departments and hav...
How the Small Business Administration became a leader in evidence-based decision making: An interview with Jason Bossie, Director, Office of Performance Management, SBA – Episode #169
Over the last two years, the Small Business Administration has made laudable progress in building and using evidence in order to learn what works and...
How Oregon’s auto-enrollment IRA program, OregonSaves, helps state residents save for retirement: An interview with Lisa Massena, Executive Director, OregonSaves – Episode #168
It has been estimated that more than half of Americans are saving too little to support an adequate lifestyle if they plan to retire at age 65. It was...
Two promising strategies to promote college success for disadvantaged students: An interview with Lindsay Page, University of Pittsburgh, and Michael Weiss, MDRC – Episode #167
Low-income and first-generation students enroll in and complete college at much lower rates than their more advantaged peers. This is particularly pro...
How HHS’s Data Science CoLab catalyzes employee innovation: An interview with Will Yang, CoLab Director, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Episode #166
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched a pilot version of a new initiative called the Data Science CoLab, an eight-week-lo...
Wins for data and evidence-based policy in the bipartisan budget deal: An interview with Nick Hart, Bipartisan Policy Center – Episode #165
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, passed by Congress and signed by the President on February 9th, 2018, contains several noteworthy bright spots in t...
Why evaluation policies are useful to results-focused federal agencies: An interview with Naomi Goldstein, HHS, and Molly Irwin, DOL – Episode #164
A small but growing number of federal departments and agencies have created evaluation policies that describe the principles that those agencies seek...
How program managers can use random assignment (i.e., a lottery) to build evidence that can improve customer service: An interview with Matthew Notowidigdo, Northwestern University – Episode #163
How can program managers within public agencies — whether local, state or federal — use random assignment (in other words, a lottery) within programs...