Training the Next Generation of Leaders for Evidence-Based Policy with the Humphrey School
This spring, something happened at the University of Minnesota that we’ve been thinking about for a long time. A classroom full of graduate students sat down for the first session of a new course: Evidence-Based Practice and Evaluation for Decision-Making. It’s a collaboration between CoLab and the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and it exists because the gap between what we know and what we do about barriers to upward mobility is costing people their futures.
An Evidence-to-Action Gap
At CoLab, our mission is to bolster upward mobility and thriving communities by funding and supporting actionable, longitudinal research on programs, practices, and their effects. We fund world-class studies informed by community voices and geared toward policy action. We advocate for better data infrastructure. We facilitate the use of evidence in philanthropy and policy-making. But even the best research in the world can’t change outcomes if decision-makers don’t know how to make sense of it and put it into practice.
We feel a sense of urgency about this. Despite decades of public and private investment, upward economic mobility in the United States has stagnated — and by some measures, it’s getting worse. If decision-makers at all levels of government and philanthropy had the skills and commitment to put evidence to action — continuously learning and refining for better results — we’d expect to see continuous improvement. We’re not. Something in the chain between knowledge and action is broken.
That’s the gap this course is designed to address.
Years in the Making
Matt had studied evidence-based social intervention and policy evaluation at the University of Oxford, and it was a truly formative experience — a multidisciplinary program that drew from statistics, economics, public health, sociology, and medicine to teach not just how evidence is produced, but how it should be used. When he returned to the United States, he couldn’t find anything similar here. The training existed in fragments — an econometrics course here, a program evaluation seminar there — but nothing that brought it all together with the applied, decision-making focus that both applied researchers and decision-makers need.
Meanwhile, Ruthvin was also witnessing this gap first-hand, both as a public policy student at the Humphrey School and then as a Humphrey Fellow. While there were great courses on research methods, he saw a significant appetite among students and organizations for practical evaluation skills for decision-making. The need seemed particularly acute for decisions with long-term policy development implications.
Then, during CoLab’s earliest days, we spent a lot of time in conversations with government leaders, nonprofit executives, researchers, and community members. One conversation that stuck with us was with a nonprofit leader who said: “We’re glad you’re funding evaluators to study our work, but what we really need is for our own staff leaders to understand evaluation — not to become researchers, but to know how to think about evidence, how to partner with evaluators to build new evidence from our efforts, and use data to keep improving what we do.” That really confirmed the need.
Through conversations with the dean, Dr. Nisha Botchwey, the idea for this course came to fruition in spring 2024. Since that time, with input from CoLab scientific advisor Dr. Abigail Wozniak at the Federal Reserve, as well as Humphrey professors teaching existing research and evidence coursework, we shaped a course grounded in real-world application rather than theory alone.
The course brings two world-class applied economists into the classroom: Dr. Aaron Sojourner, a senior researcher at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and chair of Constellation’s Impact Council, and Dr. Andrew Goodman-Bacon, a principal research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Both bring not only deep methodological expertise but also extensive experience translating research into real-world policy decisions. Guest lecturers contribute additional perspectives to create a truly holistic learning experience — ranging from appraising impact evaluation findings, to incorporating mixed-methods and community-based participatory research, to applying evidence in policy decision-making.
What Evidence-Based Practice Actually Means
One of the most important things we teach in this course is what evidence-based practice is not. It’s not a cookbook. It’s not a top-down mandate to implement whatever survived two randomized controlled trials.
Instead, evidence-based practice is designed as an empowering framework — one that integrates the best available research evidence with practitioner expertise and the needs and values of the people served. It’s about humility. It’s about following data rather than our own opinions or isolated anecdotes. And it’s about continuous improvement — having the skills to constantly develop and improve solutions to meet the need based on the best available evidence. Whether you become a policymaker, a nonprofit leader, a foundation officer, a legislative staffer, or a researcher, the ability to find, appraise, and apply high-quality evidence should be a core competency, not an afterthought.
Why this Matters Now
There’s no question that trust in science, data, and evidence-informed decision-making is under strain today. That makes the ability to critically evaluate information — to separate credible evidence from noise — extraordinarily important. This course equips the next generation of leaders with the tools to do exactly that, with rigor and with equity woven through every module.
This work connects directly to everything CoLab does. Last October, we convened our annual Evidence-to-Action Forum, bringing together Chief Data Officers from across the country with Minnesota state and local leaders to advance the strategic use of data for the public good. That event reinforced an energizing reality: the appetite among decision-makers for better evidence and better tools to use it is enormous. We found this to be true for decision-makers from a range of institutional and life perspectives and across party lines.
Yet, while we can fund the most rigorous evaluations and convene the most productive forums in the country, if we’re short on professionals with the skills to make decisions about programs and policies based on evidence, we’ll have produced knowledge without impact. Building that human capacity is as essential to our mission as funding the research itself.
History shows what’s possible when evidence is applied well. The shift from juvenile detention to diversion programs has led to dramatic reductions in incarcerated youth and better outcomes at lower cost — a transformation accepted across the political spectrum. Cash transfer programs went from a fringe idea to a centerpiece of global poverty reduction, propelled by rigorous evaluation. These changes didn’t happen because the evidence existed. They happened because people knew how to use it.
The class this semester is full and diverse — in backgrounds, disciplines, and career ambitions — which is exactly what we hoped for. And this is just the beginning. We see this course as a launching point for broader professional development initiatives that could reach nonprofit practitioners, public servants, and community leaders across Minnesota and beyond.
Because ultimately, the most important thing about evidence isn’t that it exists. It’s that someone, somewhere, uses it to make a better decision for the people who need it most.
CoLab at the Constellation Fund catalyzes, funds, and supports actionable research on solutions for upward mobility.