Team members have implemented a wide variety of tools in institutional assessments over the past two and a half decades. Recently, they have adapted tools for use in microfinance evaluations.

One of the more recent innovations by the IDEAS team has been their adaptation of the Malcolm Baldridge tool to international microfinance. The Baldridge tool(www.quality.nist.gov) is an internationally recognized best-practice tools for process improvement and customer focus. This adaptation work was encouraged by Katalysis, Inc. (www.katalysis.org), as a part of the final evaluation for their Matching Grant, covering six MFIs in four Central American countries. IDEAS Team members from El Salvador, Nicaragua, and the United States participated in the extensive evaluation.

Team members Carter Garber and Milton Argüello led a workshop on the innovative adaptation of the Baldrige tool at the annual meeting of the SEEP Network, the North American professional association for microfinance, in October 2001.

Download here a Powerpoint presentation explaining the Team’s adaptations of the Baldridge tool.

Download here a Powerpoint presentation explaining how to adapt our IDEAS version of the Baldrige tool to your organization.