When a nonprofit sets out to change lives, one of the toughest questions is: How do we know if it’s working?
For KidzNotes, a North Carolina-based afterschool orchestral music program inspired by Venezuela’s El Sistema, that question was particularly important. Since 2010, KidzNotes has provided intensive music training to elementary school students in underserved communities, three afternoons a week and Saturday rehearsals, adding up to as many as 400 hours of engagement a year. Beyond music, the program aspires to build confidence, strengthen social connections, and boost academic success.
To evaluate these outcomes, KidzNotes partnered with a program at the Social Science Research Institute, the Applied Research, Evaluation, & Engagement (AREE), which specializes in providing research and evaluation expertise for both Duke programs and community organizations. The team partners on funding proposals, supports nonprofits in designing and implementing evaluations, and brings deep experience in both quantitative and qualitative methods. Their goal is always the same: to deliver responsive, actionable, and accessible research that strengthens real-world programs.
The Challenge
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often considered the gold standard for program evaluation because they use random assignment to measure cause and effect. But in community settings, RCTs can feel rigid or even incompatible. Community-engaged research (CER), by contrast, emphasizes shared decision-making, flexibility, and responsiveness to local needs.
The AREE-KidzNotes partnership set out to prove that these approaches don’t have to conflict. Working together, they designed a study that was both rigorous and community-centered while striving to meet the standards of an RCT while honoring the values and priorities of KidzNotes families and staff.
The evaluation focused on two sets of outcomes:
- Youth Outcomes: social-emotional development, executive function, school engagement, and academic performance.
- Parent and Family Outcomes: confidence in supporting children’s education, involvement in learning activities, and growth in social connections.
To gather evidence, AREE researchers combined surveys from teachers and caregivers with computer-based assessments for students.
Over two cohorts (2018–2019 and 2019–2020), kindergarten and first-grade students at nine schools applied to KidzNotes. Students were randomly assigned either to join KidzNotes immediately or to serve as part of a control group, creating a strong foundation for comparison and analysis.
Collaboration is Key
Before launching the trial, AREE and KidzNotes co-developed a program logic model, conducted interviews with long-term participants, and worked within a shared leadership model to ensure that everyone, from program staff to families, had a voice in shaping the evaluation. This collaborative process reflected AREE’s mission: to use social science methodologies through an interdisciplinary, community-engaged lens that values transparency, trust, and practical impact.
The AREE-KidzNotes collaboration highlighted three important lessons:
- Strong partnerships matter. Trust and relationship-building laid the foundation for rigorous and community-centered research.
- Flexibility strengthens outcomes. Even within an RCT framework, making room for community input improved both the process and the findings.
- CER and RCTs can coexist. With intentional design, community engagement and rigorous evaluation can work hand in hand—producing results that are both credible and meaningful.
By working with AREE, KidzNotes gained reliable evidence about its impact while deepening its connection to the community it serves. The project demonstrates how rigorous research can inform practice without losing sight of the people and stories at the heart of a program.
Under the leadership of AREE Director Jessica Sperling, the group continues to help nonprofits and Duke partners alike measure what matters: building bridges between research and practice so that evidence serves communities in powerful, lasting ways.