The Coco Canary Monthly Newsletter
March 2021
Summary: New website, lots of learning/unlearning, supporting local, my first citation, and Justice for George Floyd! All in this month’s newsletter.
Welcome to Coco Canary!
If you’re new here, read this section! Otherwise, skip on down.
Hello from Molly O’Connor, the CEO, and founder of Coco Canary Consulting, LLC (CCC), an evaluation & communications firm.
We are based in St. Paul, MN, and we acknowledge that we are on stolen indigenous lands. Home to the Santee Dakota and Anishinaabe people. These people were the first stewards of the lands we occupy, and they are still here. We honor their connection to this land and their ongoing resilience in the face of violent colonialism.
You may ask, how do social justice and racial equity relate to evaluation or communication? Well, from our experience, we have seen evaluations designed and communications reported in ways that harm, undervalue, and take advantage of the communities being served. This is our current status quo, and it is not okay. It has to change. This is why we do our work differently because we want to be apart of the solution, not the problem.
Please visit Community Centric Fundraising for more information. It is a new movement that has inspired thousands (including Coco Canary) to do better. For extra credit, visit Consulting With a Racial Equity Lens too.
Business Updates
- The New Coco Canary Website is LIVE! (And With a New Email)
Oh wow, everyone. You have no idea how excited and relieved I am that my new website is finally live! It was a team effort, though I did most of the writing and development (shoutout to my partner, Mike, for his patience and for helping me when I was in tears because of a coding issue). There are still some minor changes that need to be ironed out, but for now, it is workable, and I feel it is in much better shape than my last website. Go check it out at cococanary.com! And please let me know if you find any bugs for me to fix.
You may also recall that I partnered with General Assembly in the making of my website. Well, I collaborated with their students for my website design, and one student, in particular, Sarah Holt, sent me a fantastic website wireframe that inspired the home page. If you require user experience (UX) assistance, I can get you in contact with her.
Lastly, I created an email based on the new domain (cococanary.com). You can reach me at moconnor@cococanary.com. You can still contact me at my previous email as well. I’ll eventually fully transition over, but let’s focus on one achievement at a time! ;
2. Learning Lots About Culturally Responsive and Racial Equity (CRRE) Strategic Engagement and Evaluation
I self-identify as many things, but when talking about my unlearning of traditional evaluation’s harmful practices, I’m “In-Training” a lot of the time. A big goal for my first year as a full-time consultant was to take the time to learn and unlearn these practices. Well, this month, I attended a two-day workshop hosted by MPHI titled Utilization of a Cultural Responsive and Racial Equity (CRRE) Lens to Guide Strategic Engagement and Evaluation.
In summary, it was excellent. What I appreciated most is that the facilitators reminded us a lot that this is not something tangible. It is a mindset change. Yes, there are formulas and checklists you can follow, but racial equity work is internal work at the end of the day. Culturally responsive work is also inner work. And this work is lifelong.
There was someone in the class who has been working in the evaluation field for a long time and asked if they are “too late in the game” to start doing this. The facilitators shared that it is never too late to start equity work and encouraged everyone to sit and reflect on how they can implement what we learned into our practices.
I highly recommend attending this workshop if you ever get the chance.
Other Business Updates
Support a Twin Cities Black-Owned, Impact-Driven Business: Flava Café
Flava Café exists to cultivate careers for young womxn, nonconforming, and nonbinary individuals who live at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and ability while creating a supportive community in a local coffeehouse.
They are relocating to St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood (not far from me!) and are looking for financial support. Check out their IFundWomen page and follow them on their social media!
I Presented About Impact Metrics for SEED SPOT
I am an alum of SEED SPOT and was asked if I could present about evaluation and impact measurement for their newest business development cohort! It went well, and here’s what the organizer had to say:
“On behalf of the entire SEED SPOT team, I want to thank you for leading such a wonderful session today. I am convinced that few people in the world have the power to engage an audience in the way that you did. And it showed because the feedback we received from the cohort was extremely positive. Everyone wants to connect with you! Thank you again for your continued support for SEED SPOT and the entrepreneur community.”
Still in the Creative Evaluation Class and am LOVING it.
Here I am, “In-Training” again. But gosh, I can’t wait to build more creative evaluation methods and principles into my practice. I’ll share more about this in a future newsletter. Though, if you haven’t yet, go check out Inspire to Change.
Coco Canary Consulting Turned 1!
We “reached” our goals for year one:
1. Begin the long journey of learning and unlearning the stuff that perpetuates white supremacy and white-dominant culture in Evaluation and Strategic Planning.
2. Get our name out there by reconnecting with networks, working with clients, speaking at conferences, and building new friendships and partnerships.
For 2021-2022 our goals are to explore how Coco Canary can grow bigger. Specifically partnering, collaborating, and co-creating with colleagues and community members. There are even rumors that Coco Canary is exploring cooperative development! Yes, if we are to grow (which looks pretty likely), I would prefer to do it as a team. I’m in the process of learning the pros and cons of co-creating a co-op and will keep you updated about the experience!
Personal Update
My First Ever Citation in an Academic Journal
I got the news a couple of weeks back that I was cited in the Current Issues in Tourism journal (DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2021.1896487); hooray! If you’re new around here, you may not know that my master’s research was about museum awareness-making and meaning-making. It was published in the Journal of Museum Education one year ago. If you’re curious, the article is titled Exploring how awareness-making elicits meaning-making in museum visitors: A mixed-methods study (DOI:10.1080/10598650.2020.1739466). And, if you are interested in reading it, send me an email. I can forward you the PDF.
Anyway, it was a fun moment to get notified that my research was cited and even more fun when folks from around the world reached out to me to read the article. One person in particular from a Brazilian institution plans to incorporate our article into their museum program curriculum. How cool is that??
Let’s Stay Connected!
To keep up to date with my business news, connect or follow me on Linkedin. Don’t forget to follow our newsletter (or share with others), as well! And, of course, if you know of anyone who may benefit from our services, send them our way. Referrals are what makes the world go round.
In solidarity,
Molly O’Connor (she/her/hers)
CEO – Evaluation & Communications Specialist
direct: (612) 868-0364
email: moconnor@cococanary.com
website: cococanary.com
Black Lives Matter
Justice for George Floyd. Period. The world is watching.
