A client/partner spotlight from McREL
by Katie Gao
Cornerstones of effective partnerships––shared vision and goals, complementary strengths, mutual trust and respect––often take years to establish, and even longer to produce meaningful outcomes for those involved. So partnerships that grow stronger over time and build lasting resilience are something to celebrate. McREL International has been honored to partner with one such community-based organization in Hawai‘i for over a decade as a research and program evaluation partner.
The Institute for Native Pacific Education and Culture (INPEACE) is a nonprofit organization that serves Native Hawaiians on the Wai‘anae Coast of O‘ahu and across other islands via programs that empower communities through early learning, educational equity, and economic stability. Founded in 1994, INPEACE has stewarded one of the nation’s longest standing “Grow Your Own” teacher education programs, now known as the Ka Lama Education Academy, which “strives to nurture educators deeply rooted in their cultural heritage and committed to serving their community with excellence in education” (see this INPEACE blog from September 2024).
Partnering for Continuous Improvement of Community Programs
In 2014, INPEACE received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Native Hawaiian Education Program to support the growth and improvement of the Ka Lama Education Academy. Needing an external, third-party evaluation partner as part of its grant requirement, INPEACE reached out to McREL. Sanoe Marfil, INPEACE’s current CEO, was the Ka Lama program director at the time and worked with McREL staff to design an evaluation plan that would best capture the successes of the programs and areas for improvement.
Ms. Marfil shared that the discussions with McREL and the consistent opportunities for INPEACE to co-develop research questions, data collection strategies, and look at findings together with the evaluators led her to gain a fuller view of the purpose of program evaluation. “I was under the impression that for external evaluators, it’s quite simple—we give the information, they analyze it, and then a report is created. But it became so much more,” she reflected. “For me, what shifted is that, as an evaluator, McREL is a true partner—they’re not just here to scrutinize the work, they’re here to help us improve and understand the evaluation process.”
Three grant cycles later, INPEACE’s Ka Lama program continues to innovate its services for non-traditional students to pursue education degrees and certifications that will contribute to the locally grown high-quality workforce serving the Wai‘anae Coast. With around 200 program graduates currently teaching across the state, the program has proven successful and impactful for Native Hawaiians.
The Ka Lama Education Academy by INPEACE is a community-based program that empowers local residents to pursue teaching careers through culturally relevant training, mentorship, and support, fostering educational growth and leadership within Hawaiian communities. Photo courtesy of INPEACE.
INPEACE’s programs like Ka Lama are well known for championing the professional growth of community members who are either starting their careers or looking for a new direction. Ms. Marfil’s own story follows this trajectory. “I came to the doors of INPEACE 17 years ago as a mom participating in our family child interaction preschool program called Keiki Steps,” she said. “I was really excited to be learning with my daughter and interacting with her and being in community with others.”
Ms. Marfil found purpose in serving her community through INPEACE programs, moving up over the years from program support to chief program officer, and, as of September 2024, as INPEACE’s chief executive officer. From her holistic perspective on organizational strategy, Ms. Marfil said that program evaluations, beyond fulfilling reporting requirements, guide INPEACE in making strategic decisions about their programs. By analyzing data, they can pinpoint strengths, identify areas for improvement, and chart future directions for their work.
McREL CEO Bryan Goodwin recognizes the distinct value of this long-running partnership, in particular INPEACE’s commitment to year-after-year continuous improvement of their programs to serve the community, and McREL’s own continuous improvement to serve as an evaluation partner that prioritizes relationships. “INPEACE’s success is how we measure our own success,” Goodwin shared. “Our mission is to understand and support their goals and vision.”
Partnering for Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Evaluation Methods
Serving Hawai‘i and the Pacific region out of a Honolulu-based office since 2012, McREL provides education improvement services that are culturally responsive and sustaining by partnering with local leaders who have visions of success for their students and school communities. One resource that the McREL researchers working on INPEACE evaluations have embraced in recent years is the Evaluation with Aloha: A Framework for Working in Native Hawaiian Contexts.
Dr. Natasha Saelua, a McREL researcher who serves on two INPEACE program evaluation teams, said that the culturally responsive framework focuses on building deep, reciprocal relationships that honor cultural values and community needs. She noted two ways––in responsibility and relationships––that the method is distinctive from a Western evaluation approach, which is a traditionally outcome-driven process focused on the evaluator’s objectivity.
“From a Western or standard evaluation practice, the boundary between evaluator and the program is very clear, where in the Evaluation with Aloha framework evaluation includes reciprocity and the kuleana (responsibility) to communities and to the organization,” Dr. Saelua explained. “Evaluation with Aloha prioritizes relationship building and capacity building along with accountability. The relationship has to matter as much as high-quality work.”
For example, where typical evaluation interview methods often require a rigid line of questioning for program participants, a culturally responsive approach to interviews fosters a collaborative exchange of ideas, where both the evaluator and the participants contribute to the meaning-making process. Dr. Saelua described the informal process, “I ask a question, they respond. I respond with where I’m thinking, and then they respond with other thinking … we’re mutually developing answers together.”
Likewise, when it comes time for annual evaluation reports, the evaluator and the program teams both contribute to the findings through discussions about what data shows, what it means, and how it should be communicated in the report and shared with the community.
Partnering to Scale Up a STEM Education Initiative for Hawai‘i’s Children
Like all of INPEACE’s programs, community is at the heart of Kaulele, the organization’s newest science education initiative. Recently funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Kaulele seeks to create more equitable opportunities for Native Hawaiian students to learn science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through Indigenous perspectives and practices. Kaulele, which means “to take flight,” has a goal of sparking curiosity, engaging, and motivating more Pacific Islanders toward exploring STEM in their studies and careers.
As part of the initiative, INPEACE created three traveling science exhibits from 2021–2024: The Science of Kapa (barkcloth), Kaulana Mahina (lunar calendar), and newly launched Loko I‘a (fishponds). The exhibits connect modern and traditional science in an interactive, hands-on way for young learners. The first three exhibits are informing the model and the design for the Lawei‘a (fishing) exhibit set to launch in 2025. Through this project, INPEACE seeks to expand the research on an Indigenous-led design framework, as well as the ability to produce consistent results and impacts across the exhibits.
INPEACE’s Kaulele project develops science exhibits that feature hands-on STEM learning experiences for communities across Hawai‘i, aiming to inspire and engage young learners with interactive activities that incorporate Native Hawaiian culture and environmental themes. Photo courtesy of INPEACE.
Maile Keliʻipio-Acoba, INPEACE’s CEO for seven years before retiring in 2024, was instrumental in launching the Kaulele initiative and plans to continue supporting the project in her retirement. She said the strength of the program is created by weaving together the strengths found in diverse perspectives that can contribute to advancing Native Hawaiian communities. To that end, she fostered a team of INPEACE staff, community advisers, funders, and research organizations to support Kaulele. McREL is serving as the external program evaluator for the NSF grant, collaborating with staff from Kamehameha Schools who are providing consulting research support to develop and show the impact of the exhibits.
Ms. Keliʻipio-Acoba said having separate entities for research and evaluation has been a helpful model in confirming or challenging what she’s thinking about. “I get to validate things with not just one but two different [research] groups, and we’re all working together.” She emphasized, “This community that we’re serving is so important to me, and I want to know and understand what we’ve been doing right and what we can do better.”
Brandon Ledward, a research analyst in Kamehameha Schools’ Strategy and Experience division, joins the Kaulele research and evaluation team meetings, which he said have a collaborative and productive focus through Ms. Keliʻipio-Acoba’s leadership and a humble approach by all involved. He noted the importance of integrating both Indigenous and Western research frameworks, seeing this dialogue as a means of refining perspectives and advancing understanding, calling it “an intentional blurring of the lines between research and evaluation, between knowledge and practice, between Western and Indigenous as well.”
Maile Keliʻipio-Acoba and McREL evaluation team members Ashlyn Osendorf and Natasha Saelua shared about their experience implementing the Evaluation with Aloha framework in a roundtable “Incorporating Indigenous Ways of Knowing in Evaluation – the Kaulele Collaborative” at the Hawai‘i–Pacific Evaluation Association annual conference in September 2024.
A Partnership Built on Collaboration and Trust Creates Long-Term Gains
Both INPEACE and McREL, like many nonprofits, have challenges that arise over time from changes to funding, staffing, organizational priorities, and more. Through the years, the two organizations have supported each other through such challenges, enabling the work to continue after a period of reorientating goals and vision.
Ms. Keliʻipio-Acoba stressed that continuity in funding support is crucial for programs that have long-term success at stake, like Ka Lama, which serves non-traditional students pursuing higher education, and Keiki Steps, which serves preschool-age children and their families. “Impact doesn’t come in one year, and it doesn’t come in three years. But funding cycles happen in those kinds of increments,” she said.
Current CEO Marfil shared that the collaborative program–evaluator relationship with McREL enables INPEACE to present a stronger case for ongoing funding, despite the challenges posed by short grant cycles. By providing strong, data-driven reports and helping INPEACE tell their story more effectively, McREL plays a role in guiding funders’ interests and showcasing the impact of INPEACE’s work.
Katie Gao, Ph.D., is a Hawaiʻi-based communications manager at McREL International who supports research, evaluation, and professional learning projects across the Pacific region.
Read more about Ms. Keliʻipio-Acoba and Ms. Marfil’s personal experiences at INPEACE in this co-authored article with McREL in the Journal Committed to Social Change on Race and Ethnicity (2024; Volume 10, Issue 1): The Institute For Native Pacific Education And Culture (Inpeace): An Unapologetically Hawaiian Organization