This blog is written with the evaluation commissioner (clients) in mind at the stage where they have to assess whether a proposed design is going to be successful, but the advice is relevant for those designing evaluations and those designing terms of reference for evaluations too! It might seem like Read more…
So, you’ve put in place your programme of interventions, you’ve collected data and analysed that data to tell you how well the intervention has gone and you’ve even had an evaluation done (by some lucky person like me) that has highlighted in a report format the impact that your programme Read more…
Picture it: you’re a small charity with limited staff, financial resources and no experience in fancy flowcharts, surveys and log frames. But you know you need to do something to demonstrate your impact. Your supporters are asking questions, your donors want to know what difference you’re making. Even the regulator Read more…
This month I’ve spoken a lot about participatory methods and how I’ve used them to deliver results for clients. Many are sceptical on the true value of participatory approaches other than to include stakeholder voice and as an exercise in consultation. The argument is often that these approaches are not Read more…
It is always exciting to help an organisation develop its vision and goals. Last month I had the opportunity to work with a client and three country teams from India, Egypt and Nepal to establish a Theory of Change following a summative evaluation I completed in 2018 on their work Read more…
Recently I completed a mid-term evaluation for a small client that wasn’t used to doing evaluations. The evaluation process had gone smoothly, but it was clear from the data collection that some of the stakeholders involved didn’t really understand the point of doing an evaluation. So, having completed the draft Read more…
One of the biggest challenges any organisation faces is ensuring strong engagement from beneficiary groups, community stakeholders and other groups involved with or affected by that organisation’s work. NGOs in the global South have gotten better at including beneficiaries and communities in their design processes and mobilising them to be Read more…
In the latest edition of ‘Evaluation’ – the UK Evaluation Society’s journal – I read an article about how evaluation practitioners need to challenge the standard way of doing things. In particular the author was advocating using systems thinking and complexity more in evaluation design and implementation. This surprised me. Read more…
You will remember that last month I mentioned that M&E was one of the five basic planning issues that social impact organisations needed to get right. So what happens when M&E doesn’t work? What happens when, despite best efforts, either the wrong data is collected or the tools and M&E Read more…
I was asked this question by a client recently: “why is it always about data?” The organisation has struggled to identify appropriate measures to track its programme performance and impact, it has some systems in place but needs to improve and in exasperation one of the team turned to me Read more…