Evaluation – just ask

Tuesday, 21st February

I get most of my evaluation jobs because someone in an organisation wants to know if they (or a group they fund) are making a difference. I apply all of the tricks of the trade I have learned to that task. Learning about the achievements and pointing out ways that organisations can do better is very satisfying. I love doing evaluations.

What I find even more satisfying is helping members of those organisations do their own evaluations. I don’t mean I teach them how to write a questionnaire to distribute through SurveyMonkey or run stakeholder consultations, although if anyone would like Social Dimensions to do some training on those subjects we would be delighted to oblige.

What I mean is that not-for-profit and government organisations that I work with have it within their power to do their own evaluations. All they have to do is ask. Ask the people on their staff. Ask the people with whom they are planning activities. Ask the people who benefit from those benefits. Ask the people you wanted to attend the events.

More often than not my job is to do the asking for the organisation. Usually I hear the same things that they have already been told. They just didn’t hear. Sometimes they can hear better when an evaluator repeats the message.