Testimonials
“Dr. Banks’ knowledge and expertise were absolutely critical and instrumental in helping the organization move to the next level of effective grantmaking. Her attention to detail and diligent pursuit of the highest quality data to support our efforts led to the ultimate creation of a system that was non-existent before her arrival. While this process was a very intense time for staff that were not accustomed to being prodded for specifics about their data processes--some of which had been in place for years-- Dr. Banks inquiries were gentle and respectful. She was known for her sense of humor, inviting demeanor, engaging personality and flexibility. Her ability to balance the much desired “gold-standard” of data collection and analysis with our programmatic goals and needs was accomplished seamlessly.”
--Tamika Williams, Program Officer
Child Care Division
The Duke Endowment
"While serving as Senior Program Manager for READS for Summer Learning at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I had the good fortune to find and hire Bahby Banks for a contract position involving qualitative data collection for a literacy research study involving interviews with elementary school children. Despite her lack of direct experience with young children as research subjects, her demonstrated organization, attention to detail, enthusiasm, and other comparable experience convinced us that she would do an excellent job. Indeed, she did.
Bahby’s work included recruiting, screening, and hiring child interviewers, developing training materials and executing training sessions for them, implementing the consent process in a public school context to recruit subjects, and working with school administrations and personnel to arrange logistics and schedule the interviews. On top of these implementation tasks, she tracked progress and made regular reports to me, troubleshooting any problems and proposing options where we faced roadblocks.
I found Dr. Banks’ work to be of the highest professional caliber. In particular, her interpersonal skills served the project very well as she dealt with schools where she had implementation challenges. Her manner is both professional and warm, and she presented a very good face for the project."
--Renee Robins, Executive Director
Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Bahby explained some concepts about the evaluation process to me after just ten brief minutes of listening to me describe the services our nonprofit offers. She offered encouraging advice and did not make it seem difficult at all. She explained the difference between outcome and process evaluation and suggested we maintain very clear goals and tailor the evaluation towards accomplishment or progress towards the goals.
Bahby gave me a link to essential information at a website which I could download and familiarize myself with (National Cancer Institute, Theory at a Glance). At the end of the session, Bahby encouraged me to frame the message about our nonprofit keeping in mind who the audience is and using SOCO. The time that I spent in the focused coaching time with Dr. Bahby T. Banks was a highlight of the conference for me and will serve as a benefit to the nonprofit that I lead."
--Susan Suarez Webster, Executive Director
Cabarrus Literacy Council
"[Our] training was a fantastic experience. Both engaging and informative, Dr. Banks incorporated interactive and hands-on components to foster learning and to promote participant skill acquisition. In addition, Dr. Banks created a learning environment that was both fun and professional, promoting collaboration and cooperation among the group. I completed the training with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be successful in my work with [the project]. Dr. Banks is a brilliant presenter and a dynamic leader, and I highly recommend attending one of her trainings.
--Jenna Barnes, Program Coordinator
4-H Very Important Parents (VIP) Program
Department of Youth, Family, and Community Sciences
(former field interviewer for child literacy research study)
"Bahby is a wonderful collaborative partner and took great care to learn about the unique aspects of these programs and offered her objectivity to scrutinize and pose important clarifying questions and comments to improve the evaluation work. She also invested significant time to meet and work with grantees to advance this effort.
Bahby was highly organized, intellectually curious, and was a 'sponge' in terms of learning about new programs and models related to [our] initiatives and applying her great expertise to improve [our] evaluation process to demonstrate the impact of the [our] investments in these significant programs."
--Tina Markanda, Executive Director
High Point Community Health Fund
"The pace [of the training] was brisk, and since there was so much information to understand, the pace helped keep stay me engaged. The training was respectful and professional. Each person had a voice even though Bahby clearly led the presentations."
--Dr. Pamela Fitzpatrick