You might have seen from my social media activity that I participated in the FSI Big Advice Day during Small Charities Week. We also did something similar at our last EUConsult conference in March in London. These sessions can be quite intense. You get assigned organisations based on your skill Read more…
Disclaimer: I’m an independent consultant so I’m likely to view consultancy in quite a positive light! Sometimes you just can’t see the wood for the trees. Sometimes your team doesn’t quite have the right skill set. Sometimes you need someone else to deliver the bad news (yes that does happen). Read more…
This article first appeared in the edition of ‘Evaluator’ – the journal of the UK Evaluation Society in May 2019 When I was asked to write on capacity building for tendering and commissioning I thought briefly about making some high-brow comment on the ‘evaluation market place’, or how evaluators and Read more…
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to be an independent consultant and an independent consultant who is also an evaluator. I’ve been thinking a lot about it because, well, business has been a little slow. Glacial. At first I thought it was ‘just me’. I knew I’d Read more…
We talk a lot about positive impact: the positive impact that a programme or project is having, a positive impact delivered into someone’s life, etc. But we all know that things don’t always go swimmingly. Sometimes, in fact, our interventions don’t have the anticipated results. Sometimes people are actually worse Read more…
A version of this blog first appeared on my website in November 2013. It has had a little tweaking but is still as relevant today as it was six years ago… I talk a lot about participation, stakeholder engagement, beneficiary engagement. Not only do I think it is essential to Read more…
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…
Last time I outlined the key questions you need to think about when you start to design your monitoring system. It is important of course to keep alive the link between collecting data and telling your impact story. Being able to properly articulate the changes that you are making or 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…