About RK Evaluation & Strategies

Robin Kane, MPA, is principal of RK Evaluation & Strategies, LLC and has more than 25 years of experience in program planning, evaluation, policy advocacy, and strategic communications in the public service sector. Kane leads comprehensive process and outcome evaluation efforts with nonprofit, foundation, and public agency clients – developing theories of change, logic models, evaluation approaches, and reports tailored to audience needs. She also facilitates planning and strategy meetings, delivers in-person and online training, and conducts research for program learning and adaptation. She is experienced in using the Kirkpatrick Four-Level Model to evaluate training programs.

Kane has a special interest in planning and evaluation for long-term policy change efforts, working with foundations and advocacy groups to create meaningful ways to measure progress and success. In this work, she often applies the concepts of developmental evaluation, systems thinking and complexity, learning organization structures, and visible thinking.

Recent clients include the Arcus Foundation, Georgetown Law Center on National Security, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Physicians for Human Rights.

Prior to launching RK Evaluation & Strategies, Kane was a senior associate at the nonprofit evaluation consulting firm Innovation Network. She conducted evaluations and led trainings for the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Dyson Foundation, and Echoing Green Foundation, among others. Kane co-taught a graduate course in program evaluation methods as an adjunct professor in George Washington University’s School for Public Policy and Public Administration.

For more than a decade, Kane led and worked in communications and policy departments at national and regional advocacy organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now National LGBTQ Task Force), Consumers Union, Family Pride Coalition (now Family Equality), and TURN/The Utility Reform Network in California. She also served as a public relations consultant with Fenton Communications and Spitfire Strategies, and was a reporter at the Washington Blade.

Kane has a Master of Public Administration degree with a concentration in nonprofit management from George Washington University. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Foreign Service and international politics from the Pennsylvania State University. After more than 30 years in Washington, DC, she now lives in Boston with her spouse. She’s an enthusiastic dragon boat paddler on the Charles River and Fort Point Channel.