Jasmine Williams-Washington, Ph.D., Managing Associate, specializes in the implementation and evaluation of community organizing and organizational capacity building initiatives. Her organizational capacity building strategy is grounded in community organizing principles, using community and organizational power to make systemic change. She also has experience in quantitative and qualitative data analyses, specifically with thematic and grounded theory analyses. Professionally, she has a variety of experience with evaluations including, developmental, summative, and programmatic evaluations.

 

Jasmine brings valuable experience as a community organizer for the for the Mississippi Center for Justice in their health law division, where she educated locals on the Affordable Care Act and the obstacles they faced because of the lack of Medicaid expansion in the state. Moreover, she worked to engage the community in health law advocacy.

 

At Community Science, she leads several evaluations and other capacity building tasks for foundation grantees, evaluators, and other nonprofit organizations. She has developed training, technical assistance, and supporting materials, and conducted a variety of capacity-building efforts to help community organizations collect and utilize data for assessment, planning, and evaluation. She also skillfully conducts site visits, interviews, focus groups, and data analysis for several community development projects. Notable clients include the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, SPRACC, YMCA, and the Walton Foundation.

 

In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, crafting, traveling, and spending time with her husband and two daughters.

 

Education

  • Ph.D., Urban and Regional Planning, Jackson State University
  • M.P.A., Public Administration and Community and Economic Development, Albany State University
  • B.S., Criminal Justice, Albany State University

Expertise

  • Community Organizing and Development
  • Criminal and Social Justice
  • Organizational Capacity Building
  • Political Science
  • Thematic and Grounded Theory Analysis

Notable Publications and Presentations

  • “Tales from the Field: Building Evaluation Capacity from the Ground Up” Presented at American Evaluation Association (AEA), Washington, D.C., November 2017
  • “Urban Slums to Thriving Urban Centers: The Impact of Queer Space in East Atlanta Village, Midtown, Little Five Points, and Inman Park Neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia” Presented at Race, Gender Class (RGC), New Orleans, Louisiana, March 2017
  • Merem, E., Wesley, J., Williams, J., Foster, D., et al. (2013) Geospatial Assessment of the Impacts of Changing Agricultural Landscape in Louisiana, Marine Science, Vol. 3 No. 1, 2013, pp. 9-29
  • “Historic Preservation and Arts as an Economic Development Tool” Presented at Urban Affairs Association (UAA), San Francisco, California, April 2013
  • “Hispanics in Mississippi: Creating Sense of Place in Urban Spaces and Rural Places” Presented at Urban Affairs Association (UAA) Conference, San Francisco, California, April 2013
  • Williams, J (2011) “Urban Slums to Revitalized Communities: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Community Breathing Life into Urban Slums” http://sites.jsums.edu/durp/organizations/student-planning-association/
  • Wesley, J; Dometz-Hendrix, E & Williams, J (2011) “Moving Forward: Advancing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights under the Obama Administration through Progressive Politics” Race, Gender & Class: Volume 18
  • Merem, E; Twumasi, Y, Wesley, J, Calvert, L, Williams, J & Foster, D (2011) “The Analysis of Brownfields Land Reuse Programs: The State of Mississippi” www.umass.edu/tei/conferences/SustainableRemediation/index.html
  • Merem, E., Yerramilli, , Richardson, Williams, J., et al. (2011). Applications of Geo-Information System in Water Quality Assesment in the Mid-Atlantic Region within an Agricultural Watershed. Journal of Agriculture Science and Technology, 24-32.

Past Exemplary Projects

  • Capacity Building Task Lead, W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Place-based Effort in Mississippi and New Orleans, (2020-current). Leading the evaluation of the effort to impact education, health, and economic outcomes using approaches that promote racial equity and community and civic engagement.
  • Senior Analyst, SPRACC Community Ownership Models (2020-2021). Conducting research on community ownerships models to support and advise the six SPARCC sites in their work to foster equitable development.
  • Senior Analyst, Developmental evaluation of the Economic Mobility Action Network, CFLeads (2020-present). Designing and implementing a collaborative and adaptive evaluation to assess changes in Community Foundations as a result of their participation in the peer-driven Economic Mobility Action Network.
  • Senior Analyst, Researching the Contribution of YMCAs to Community Strength (2018-current). Leading a research study to better understand and articulate YMCAs contribution to building and sustaining community strength, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color.
  • Senior Analyst, Community Organizing Evaluation (2018-2020). For the Walton Family Foundation, helped evaluate grantees’ progress toward organizing community members in support of access to high-quality education for youth. Oversaw and contributed to the research design, retrospective portfolio analysis, and qualitative data collection.
  • Project Manager/Analyst, Evaluation of Kresge Foundation’s Fresh Local and Equitable (FreshLo) 2016-2017. Assisted in the implementation in using developmental evaluation to assess the planning process and the outcomes to implement a food-based platform for health, economic development, and cultural expression for low-income residents and families.
  • Project Manager, Assessment of the National Resource Center for Youth Violence Prevention’s (YVP-RC) Training and Technical Assistance Services, 2015-2017. Specifically provided daily supervision to the task leaders along with research analysts and assistants who helped collect data from NRC stakeholders.