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6/10/2021

WHAT IS THE POINT OF EVALUATION?

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Nothing makes me happier as an evaluator than clients who use and share the evaluation to improve their work and the work of others. It's the direct opposite of sending your report off to trustees or funders and forgetting about it. So I was delighted to find out Leeds Dance Partnership (LDP) had done exactly that. I recently completed their impact and process evaluation for the first four official years of the partnership - a three quarters of a million pound initiative supported by Arts Council England's (ACE) Ambition for Excellence scheme.

It was a very complicated partnership, programme and evaluation. Partners had to be honest, not only identifying successes, but also looking at where not everything had gone to plan. We included it all. Participants, the local and national dance sector, the Leeds cultural decision makers, and regional freelance artists all inputted to ensure a really balanced and practical set of perspectives.
There was a lot to say about the achievements, pitfalls and learning along the way. And at the same time we wanted the report to be accessible, easy to find what different people needed.

As soon as the report was completed, LDP sent it off to ACE ahead of a follow-up meeting. I rarely expect funders to read evaluation reports, knowing how stretched everyone's workload is. So I was delighted to hear ACE had not only read the report but also fed back their appreciation that "the report was more thorough than we expected - very good, and we welcomed the SWOT which explored the flaws as well as stating the positives."
Those investing in your work really do want to see the learning process not just the good news stories (of course they want to see those too!).

I thought that was the end of the story, but no. I was even more pleased when I received a message out of the blue via LinkedIn from an Organisational Development Consultant now working with Leeds Dance Partnership who said the report had been shared with her and, "I found this such a helpful and insightful piece of work that I wanted to write to say thank you as it has enabled me to engage with LDP faster and in a more informed way than would otherwise have been the case."

LDP has also made the summary and full reports available for anyone via their website here or you can read it on screen / download directly from my own collection  here.  A variety of other examples of my evaluation reports are also available on the Example Reports page.

So - these are just a couple of examples of what the point of evaluation is. It's a way to reflect, learn and evolve. It's a way to pass the memory of what happened, what worked and what didn't on from one set of people to another, to save time, stop reinventing wheels, and make the most of the resources you have. There are other reasons to do evaluation, do it well, and put it to good use. But making it publicly available and actively sharing it are a couple that really make me feel the work has been worthwhile.

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22/7/2020

Understanding Impact

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What is Impact?

It's a word used frequently by organisations, academics, practitioners and others looking to prove their worth, but what does it actually mean?

There is no single definition, but at its most simple, it means the significant difference your activity makes.
​Examples might be long term difference to individuals, a big difference to the locality, an important change in regional or national policy that will have long lasting implications, the creation of new jobs, a reduction in poor mental health, a stronger visibility for hidden voices and communities, a stronger economy, or a culture change in another group or organisation.

​This might be expressed as
- social impact or social value
​- economic impact or return on investment
- academic or research impact 

Impact is not:
  • ​Small every day changes or differences. These are outcomes. Just as important, but different in scale
  • Monetary, or at least not always
  • Purely statistical. Impact can be measured, but numbers may not be impact, and statistics alone make no sense without the story of how they came about. Outputs are the numbers of things that happened as a result of your work (such as number of workshops, people involved, things created) but they don't show how things have changed.
  • ​Purely descriptive. Anecdotes, stories, observations and other descriptions alone need some form of measurement to prove that change has happened
  • ​Always positive. It's important to note that negative impact can happen too and this needs including in impact assessment
  • ​Easy to demonstrate. Or at least not without some knowledge of how to do so reliably
  • ​Easy to claim. Often impact happens as a combination of many other experiences and activities as well as yours. It's important to understand how much you can take credit for, or not.

Why is it important?

As well as being able to demonstrate the difference you've made as a result of the resource you have, understanding, evaluating and managing your impact will help you:
  • achieve the most you can
  • do it as well as you can
  • make your resources go as far as they can

Understanding impact also helps with morale and job satisfaction as it helps everyone involved to really see tangible results to their work, which is especially important to those who may spend more days at their desk and not seeing the real difference 'on the ground'.

By having a thorough understanding of what your impact is, what it takes to create it and how it relates to your organisational purpose, you are in a stronger position for making strategic and operational decisions. You will have a much stronger knowledge of what can be improved in your processes, vision and models; what could happen when things are changed; and what it would take to create deeper or broader impact.

As social investment grows as a means of revenue, being able to evaluate and manage your impact will become ever more vital, in order to return and / or grow the investments made.

It also enables you to show how you support the Social Value Act, which not only demonstrates an ethical commitment, but can bring a competitive edge when tendering for commissioned services that receive public funding.

In short, understanding, evaluating and managing impact strengthens your organisation.

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9/8/2019

Evaluation: What Do You Want and How Much Does it Cost?

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One of the most common questions I'm asked is: can you help us with our evaluation?
My response to that is always: very probably, what do you want and what are the parameters you're thinking of regarding timeframes and budget? And what is it exactly that you want or need?

Often, people don't exactly know. They know evaluation is a good thing, or at the very least that they should be doing / getting some. But sometimes that's all they know. So here are some things to consider when you want to commission some evaluation (or put it out for tender).
  • Typically, evaluation should take around 7% of the cost of your project - give or take. There's no real hard and fast rule but it's about that to get something worthwhile. You can spend more, you can spend less, and this partly depends on the size and duration of the activity.
  • Most medium - large cultural projects tend to cost between £5000 and £20,000 to evaluate. Smaller ones understandably cost a bit less - again depending on what you want. (A large agency will cost more than an individual consultant, partnership or small company - there are pros and cons either way. And specialists within the London area tend to cost more than those elsewhere).
  • You needn't actually spend 7% or £5-20k. But do think about it taking that much resource. Some of this you might want to allocate to in-house staff so the cost is absorbed back into your budgets. But it's helpful to think of the monetary value to make sure it's properly allocated and planned in and given the value internally that it needs to be done well.
  • What are you buying - is it capacity or expertise? If it's capacity you might want to outsource the whole thing. So you need to allocate a bigger budget.
  • If it's expertise, an external specialist can guide and mentor someone in the organisation. Your specialist might help set up a framework, templates and methodologies; or they could run some internal training. And then let the team run with it. They might step back in to analyse the data and write your final report. So you can do more with less money wise.
  • Discuss costs together. If a specialist hasn't quite 'got' what you're asking for, tell them. They will be happy to adapt their suggestion. Most will give you two or three options with a breakdown of costs to help you focus on what you really do or don't want.
  • If you do know exactly what you have available to spend, tell them and ask them to advise you on how it can be best spent to get what you most need.
Two last pieces of advice:
Firstly - if the evaluation is because an external funder expects / requires it, please do be prepared to let an evaluator see your application. They will treat it confidentially, but it is a very quick way for them to give you guidance on exactly what will work best for you. A good specialist won't be pushing a big sale, but they can help you decide which options are going to be best.
Secondly - no matter how much you decide to outsource or not, an evaluator cannot do everything for you. You need a good, consistent, honest working relationship to get the best results possible. The more you put in and own it, the better the relationship and the results will be. Ideally it works as a partnership.

All of this shows how I try and work with organisations wanting evaluation. This is what you can expect from me. You can also just say: "We have £x. We'd like X. Could you do that for us?"

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CONTACT
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • About Me
    • Right now...
    • Clients
    • Client Feedback
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Fees
    • BLOG
  • IMPACT
    • What is Impact?
    • Impact Development
    • Evaluation
  • ENGAGEMENT
    • Heritage
    • Visual Arts
    • Education
    • Creative Industries
    • Culture, Education & Community Guidance
  • CHANGE
    • Research
    • Professional Development
    • Organisational Development
  • RESOURCES & DOWNLOADS
    • REPORTS
    • TOOLS & TEMPLATES >
      • Measuring & Managing Impact Quick Guide
      • Theory of Change Planning Template
      • Rose, Thorn & Bud Tool
    • TEACHER RESOURCE PACKS