Check out our impressive Youth Outcome Survey progress and help meet the Aug. 28 deadline

For educators

Thank you everyone who has been collecting and entering the Youth Outcomes Surveys! I know we are in the midst of data collection and August is a busy month for many of you. I appreciate everyone’s efforts to gather this important impact data about the 4-H experience.

As of Thursday, Aug. 6 we have 2,142 surveys collected and entered! We are well on our way compared to this time last year when we had 1,450 surveys entered. Keep up the great work!

Wondering how many responses have been collected and entered for the state, your region, or your county? You can find live updates here.

I just wanted to send a gentle reminder that our deadline for collection and data entry this year is Friday, Aug. 28. This is much earlier than last year because of this year’s impact reporting needs and tight turnaround timeline. This is a hard deadline, so unfortunately any data that comes in late will not be able to be included in impact reporting this year. If you are concerned about meeting the deadline, please reach out to your QPS specialist or program leader. 

As a reminder, you do not need to enter any surveys that you may have collected from youth that are in grades K-2. Just go ahead and recycle those since they don’t fall within our sample age range.

If you have any questions about the survey, please don’t hesitate reaching out to me or your QPS specialist.

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Heads up: New Oct. 7 reporting deadline

For everyone

Our local and state impact reporting is vital for showing the value of our work and the difference we make in young people’s lives and their communities. It is important for us to get the local impact report done as soon as possible this fall so it is available for local CEC meetings. To meet this deadline, we have moved our October reporting deadline up a week to Oct. 7.

We know there are a variety of deadlines so this graphic helps provide an outline of what is due and when. If you’d like, you can print out a flier to hang in your office as a reminder.

If you are worried about your ability to meet a reporting deadline, please reach out to your QPS specialist.

Thank you for all of your work capturing these important metrics to communicate our impact!

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Todd Mehrkens
Academic technologist.

Anna Wagner Schliep
Senior communications specialist

Update on local showcase/county fair reporting

For local educators and county support staff

As an update to previously shared instructions for local showcase reporting, we’ve added an additional step for local staff to finalize their reporting.

After all judging results have been entered into FairEntry, a newly added final step of completing the Qualtrics form will finalize local showcase reporting by asking you the following questions.

• Have you entered all judging results, ribbons, placings and awards, including all community impact awards?
• Please upload your "Entry Results for Media.xls" file, to be obtained from the standard reports screen in FairEntry.
• Have you created a 4-H Online group enrollment to report the number of adult/parent helpers at your local showcase?
• Have you recorded your 2026 judges in the "judging engagement" section of the 4-H Judges Database or submitted a list of your judges to be entered by campus staff into the Judges Database?

These final steps of filling out the Qualtrics form and uploading your results file will let us know you have completed showcase reporting and help to better streamline our overall impact reporting process. 

Please reach out to one of us if you have any questions about this process. 

Thank you for your help in sharing the impact of our showcases across the state!

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Todd Mehrkens

Academic technologist

Report on your local showcase (county fair)

For local educators and county support staff

Local showcase reporting is an important piece of our Minnesota 4-H reporting plan, and has been redesigned this year to take much less of your time and effort. There are three components to this reporting:

• Exhibitors and entries, which will be based on each county's "entry results for media" FairEntry file. This is where you report community impact recognitions.  
• Adult/parent (unscreened) helpers, which will be reported as a 4-H Online group enrollment.
• Judges, which will be submitted to the 4-H Judges Database.

Local staff are asked to have all judging results entered in FairEntry within two weeks after their fair ends, with the last fairs entering data by Sept. 21 so we can include it impact reporting. The group enrollment and judges data entry should be completed by Oct. 15.

Learn more in the showcase reporting guide.

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Todd Mehrkens

Academic technologist

Youth Outcome Survey: Now available!

For local educators and campus staff

I’m excited to announce that the 2026 Youth Outcome Survey is now available! 

The Youth Outcomes Survey is a key part of our department's evaluation strategy to understand and communicate the overall impact 4-H has on youth. The data plays a critical role in statewide and local impact reporting at the end of the program year, and we are planning to do even more with the data this year.

Gathering this data is a collaborative effort and your partnership in this work is greatly appreciated. Last year we had an impressive 4,985 responses across the state thanks to all of you! I hope you all have given yourselves a pat on the back for last year’s work. If not, please do so now! I’m continually impressed by your dedication to evaluation across Minnesota 4-H.

As you think about your plan for collecting Youth Outcomes Surveys in your county’s programs, here are some tools to help you:

• Visit the YD Intranet to download the paper version of the survey.
• Please read the 2026 Youth Outcomes Survey information sheet. Here you’ll find more information about the survey, including ideas from other educators of when and where to administer the survey.

There are a few changes this year to make note of:

• We're no longer using the coversheet process or creating unique survey links for individual program types. Instead, we just have unique survey links by county. If you need a survey link, connect with your QPS specialist to get your county’s link.
• There is only one version of the survey. The survey has options for youth to select "No" if a question doesn’t apply to them. This change is because the survey isn’t based on the program where the youth complete the survey, but their experience in 4-H the past year, and we know some youth participate in multiple types of 4-H programming.
• The survey’s questions have been updated slightly based on reviewing last year’s data and to dig more into some of our learn and lead goals as outlined in our logic model.

All surveys must be completed and entered into Qualtrics by Aug. 28

This is a hard deadline so that data can be turned around for earlier fall reporting goals this year. 

Please feel free to reach out to me (agnel@umn.edu) or your QPS specialist with questions or feedback about the survey or administration process. Thank you in advance for your help in making this year’s Youth Outcome Survey a success!

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Use new evaluations for overnight camps

For educators

Minnesota 4-H is excited to share two evaluations to use with your overnight camp program. 

• Camper evaluation
• Counselor evaluation 

Both evaluations were developed based on the 4-H camp program goals and our learn and lead outcomes for young people. 

Using these two tools will provide us: 

• The impact the Minnesota 4-H camp program has on our thousands of campers and camp counselors.
• Collecting statewide data allows us to share the comprehensive impact of the 4-H camp experience with stakeholders - both internal and external, including grant funders.
• Useful data for continuous quality improvement, both statewide and locally.

The camper evaluation is one page, with questions that align with their developmental stage. The evaluation acknowledges the development of youth expertise in that role and our deeper investment in them. Camps using counselors in training (or junior counselors) should use the evaluation that aligns with the role they spend most of their time in at camp. 

Data collection plan for statewide camp evaluation:

• All camps must use the camper and counselor evaluations.
• Evaluation data will be collected from all campers, camp counselors in training/junior counselors, and counselors at the end of camp.
• Paper evaluations will be used with campers.
• Camp counselors may use paper or an electronic option.
• Evaluation data will be entered into Qualtrics within three weeks post-camp, with a final deadline of Aug. 28.
• Data entry is done by the RSS, CSS or EE who supports the camp.
• When entering the data into Qualtrics, include the youth’s role: camper, camp counselor in training/junior counselor, or camp counselor.  
• Each camp will receive a camp-specific report for campers and for counselors in the fall.

Additional data collection methods

• Staff and camp counselors leading educational sessions are encouraged to use teaching evaluations to collect feedback. 
• Additional counselor feedback can come from daily reflection time, post-camp reflection, focus groups, and individual conversations.

Reach out to Nicole Pokorney or your regional QPS specialist if you have any further questions.

Karen Beranek

QPS specialist

Celebrate our success: Healthy living baseline report and fund winners announced!

For everyone

Thank you to the participants and everyone who contributed to the report called “Healthy Living Program: Current Reach & Baseline Survey.” A special shout out to Amy Grack Nelson for her work in analyzing the data and preparing this report! We gathered incredible insights from 86 colleagues across the state; this data will serve as our compass for the future of healthy living programming.

As promised, please join me in congratulating our regional winners (selected at random), who have each been awarded $100 in funding to boost their local programming:

• Central Region: Sarah Devine
• Northeast region: Nicole Kudrle
• Northwest region: Sandi Weiland
• Southeast region: Sydney Mitchell
• Southwest region: Suzanne Souza

*Note: Winners will receive a follow-up email from me shortly with specific details and guidance on how to use these funds.

Looking ahead

Moving forward, my goal is to prioritize a couple of your suggestions, including developing a new resource or program and exploring a potential training opportunity. I’m also excited to follow up with colleagues who noted an interest in partnering as these opportunities arise.

Dive into the data!

I encourage you to review the full healthy living program report to see the impact we're making together. Your feedback is invaluable, so please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments regarding the findings.

Thank you again for all you do through your programming to prepare youth to be "Beyond Ready" for their healthy future!

Aysha Baltaci

Healthy living statewide specialist

Submit your 2026 YD teaching now!

For everyone

The 2026 YD teaching survey is officially open! You’ll notice this year’s survey has fewer questions as it is focused solely on what is needed for federal reporting requirements. You also no longer need to enter information about training you have done for your colleagues in Minnesota 4-H Youth Development. We know you are keeping track of your own teaching and training practices for your own purposes, so we are just focusing on what is needed for federal reporting in hopes of making this process much quicker and easier for all of you.

So what do you need to enter into the YD teaching survey?  

• Public training of youth workers: Youth worker training where the primary audience is not Minnesota 4-H Youth Development staff.
• Minnesota 4-H volunteer training: Training offered to Minnesota 4-H volunteers (be sure not to record events already in the Databank, such as the Annual Volunteer Training).
• Youth training: Training offered to youth not considered 4-H participants that is not recorded in 4-H Online or part of a program component (we expect there to be very few of these).

To help with reporting, I’ve created this results dashboard so you can see what has already been entered. The hope is this will help to avoid duplication of efforts as we had quite a few double entries last year. 

Entries are due by the end of the calendar year, however it is recommended you record these events as they happen. This ensures the accuracy of the data and reduces the chance that we miss reporting your great work! Some suggestions to help you remember: put an event on your calendar every few months as a reminder to yourself or include a link to the survey in your training plan as the last step. 

What about reporting your publications this year?

We are streamlining that process as well. This year, we will no longer have a publications survey. Instead, per suggestion from the program leaders, I'll connect with them and other members of the leadership team during federal reporting time to get that information as they are connected to all of the great work you are doing. 

Please contact me via email (agnel@umn.edu) if you have any questions!

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Minnesota 4-H enrollment dashboard up and running

For everyone

We're happy to announce that the enrollment dashboard is up and working again. You can find final enrollment numbers for 2024 - 2025 along with 2025 - 2026 data through early February. The date of the last update is noted in red in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard.

We have some additional improvements coming to the dashboard to help us better track some of our Beyond Ready goals, so stay tuned! 

If you have any questions about the dashboard and how to use it, you can refer to this guide or reach out to me, I'm happy to help you with your data needs.

Amy Grack Nelson

Evaluation specialist

Don't forget to submit your 2025 YD teaching and publications!

For everyone

Have you submitted all of your YD teaching and YD publications for 2025 yet?

Please submit any new teaching or publication data by completing the 2025 YD teaching and YD publications surveys. These surveys are short and simple forms our department uses to track our publications and teaching, both collectively and individually. Complete the appropriate form for each unique teaching event or publication in 2025.

See the guidelines and categories of teaching and publications to be recorded.

Contact me at ashaffer@umn.edu with any questions.

Amy Gregoria

Program evaluation

Extension staff development opportunites

For educators and campus staff

University of Minnesota Extension's evaluation learning team has designed several opportunities for you to consider.

Evaluating long-term outcomes of the Minnesota Woodland Steward program

• Host: Kristina Cibuzar; Presenter: Anna Stockstad
• Nov. 6, noon - 1 p.m.
• Add this event to Google Calendar or join on Nov. 6 via Zoom.

The University of Minnesota Extension’s Minnesota Woodland Steward program aims to improve the health and resilience of Minnesota’s family forests through an intensive stewardship curriculum and direct participant engagement with landowner service providers.  To evaluate long-term outcomes and impacts of this program on family woodland owners in Minnesota, we first administered a longitudinal survey to all past participants in 2024, followed by a survey in 2025 to track yearly outcomes. We found that nearly all survey respondents implemented stewardship practices after taking the course (95%) and worked with a natural resource professional in some capacity, such as asking questions (58%), getting a stewardship plan written (52%), and accessing cost-share funds (30%).

Leveraging GIS in evaluation work

• Host: Hyunjun Kim; Presenters: U-Spatial
• Nov. 18, 11 a.m. - noon
• Add this event to Google Calendar or join on Nov 18 via Zoom.

GIS are powerful mapping tools that transform our data into dynamic, visual stories, helping us see patterns, identify community needs, and reveal our collective impact across Minnesota. This session will explore how GIS can enhance program planning, evaluation, and communication, enabling us to make more strategic, data-driven decisions. Discover how to better visualize your work and communicate its value to stakeholders, funders, and the communities we serve.

Kate Walker
Extension specialist, youth work practice

Did you host a workshop or seminar at YOUth & U?

For everyone

If you were a presenter at last week's YOUth & U conference, enter your data into the 2025 YD teaching survey now! No need to wait until December to report this teaching—reduce your end-of-year stress (and the chance that you'll forget to report this valuable teaching) by getting your data in today.

Enter YOUth & U teaching.

Amy Gregoria

Program evaluation

Youth Outcome Survey: Available and updated!

For educators and campus staff

TL:DR - The Youth Outcome Survey is available! Find the coversheet (required!) and paper copies for download in the 4-H data collection section of the YD Intranet. You'll also find instructions to request a link for collecting surveys electronically.

For 2025, we're continuing to collect the Youth Outcome Survey (YOS) as a key part of our evaluation strategy. Originally founded in the Minnesota 4-H YD Logic Model, the measures have continued to evolve, but its use remains the same: To communicate the impact of Minnesota 4-H programming, and to provide insights and benchmarks for program development.

This year, we have continued to narrow down our core measures to develop an even more streamlined survey. We hope this encourages wider use at a variety of events and programs, and you can talk with evaluation staff or your quality program specialist about ways to integrate these measures into other evaluation efforts.

Distribution and collection of surveys will remain consistent with last year. We hope you take advantage of the tools that we believe will add value at the local level.

Whether you choose to stick to the county level collection or see what you can learn from individual programs, we encourage you to make a plan now for collecting Youth Outcome Surveys in a variety of your county’s programs. Data from these surveys plays a critical role in local impact reporting at the end of the program year.

Make a plan! Tips for successful survey distribution are below.

As always, feel free to reach out to me (John Murray, murr0328@umn.edu), your QPD educator, or program leader with questions about the survey, its use, or to brainstorm ways of using the YOS as part of your individual program development.

Successful strategies for YOS distribution:

• Distribute paper surveys at your county fair project drop-off or pickup.
• Bring surveys to 4-H programs or council/federation/PDC meetings where youth from your county will be gathering.
• Team up with club and project leaders to learn more about their club or group - create a survey packet (including surveys, writing utensils and a cover sheet) for club leaders/volunteers to distribute at meetings.
• Use the program data on the cover sheet to use the YOS as [part of] a specific program’s evaluation. You can then get a specific report for a program with at least 20 participants.

For 2025 - surveys distributed at programs like camps and after school that may not have included a volunteering component can elect to opt out of receiving that question.

Have a wonderful week!

John Murray

Evaluation specialist

Start submitting your 2025 YD teaching and YD publications now!

For everyone

The 2025 YD teaching and YD publications surveys are officially open! Thank you to those of you who have been ready and asking for them to record your 2025 teaching. These surveys are short and simple forms our department uses to track our publications and teaching, both collectively and individually. 

See the guidelines and categories of teaching and publications to be recorded.

Each year, the overwhelming majority of entries occur after Dec. 1 for the entire year. Our recommendation for best practice is to record these events throughout the year as they happen. This ensures the accuracy of the data and reduces the chance that we miss reporting your hard work!

You can help improve our reporting to funders and stakeholders, and reduce your end-of-year stress by keeping this link handy throughout the year. We suggest incorporating it into your routine preparation and follow-up. You'll also get a summary report of your 2025 teaching for your own reporting and record-keeping.

Contact me via email (ashaffer@umn.edu) or stop by my desk in Coffey 475 if you have any questions!

Amy Gregoria

Program evaluation