An independent evaluation of your charity’s project or programme is one of the best ways that you can demonstrate your impact. Our charity evaluation consultants can work with you to show funders and other stakeholders the value of your work. We can also support your team to learn from your data and develop more effective services.
Our charity evaluation service delivers evaluations that:
- Capture the voices and stories of your charity’s beneficiaries
- Measure and illustrate progress against target outputs and outcomes
- Identify the key factors which make your project or programme a success
- Detail recommendations for how you can adapt, improve or scale your services
Our evaluation service addresses both outcomes (what has been achieved and who has been impacted) and process (the planning and delivery of the service and how it could be improved).
Our consultants understand what funders such as the National Lottery expect to see from an evaluation, and many of our clients have used reports produced by our evaluation consultants to support their fundraising and engage new audiences. Our consultants will work closely with your team to ensure we are generating new and actionable learning for your charity.
Charity Impact Evaluation
Our evaluations are always tailored to the needs of our clients and the report’s intended audience. But we do always follow some key steps:
Situation and gap analysis
Once we have identified the nature and scope of the service to be evaluated, we will review monitoring data collected during project delivery and identify any areas to be strengthened with additional research and consultation. We work with you to identify potential barriers to our research and how to address these so our work runs as smoothly as possible.
Evaluation framework and tool development
We develop research tools (including questionnaires, focus group and interview guides) to allow us to collect quantitative and qualitative data relating to your project’s outcomes as well as insights into your beneficiaries’ experience and satisfaction with your programme. We find that the best evaluation tools are co-produced with your beneficiaries and other stakeholders where possible.
Research and consultation
We undertake primary research including telephone and in-person interviews, interactive workshops and focus groups and supplement this with secondary desk-based research. We bring together all the data we have gathered and analyse and summarise it so that it is clear and engaging for you and your funders.
Reporting
Our full findings are then presented in a detailed and professional evaluation report which you can share with funders and other stakeholders. For longer projects, we provide an interim report so you can adapt your service delivery if needed. We can provide reports in plain English and accessible formats and produce additional slide decks and presentations so you can share the findings externally.
Charity Programme Evaluation
We have experience of multi-year programme evaluations, including assessing the impact and reach of funding programmes. Our team is able to highlight and make recommendations about impact for organisations, impact for communities and wider systems change through our research.
Why Us?
Across the company, we have collective experience of working with charities and other civil society organisations which spans more than 150 years. High quality evidence of needs and impact goes hand in hand with effective fundraising and organisational development. That’s why we’ve always focused on supporting our clients to evidence these needs and their impact.
Our consultants have conducted external project evaluations for dozens of charities in a wide range of fields such as: Housing; Genetic health conditions; young carers; older people; learning disability; advice services; arts; heritage and many more. Many of the charity evaluations we have done have been prepared for specific funders such as National Lottery Community Fund; National Lottery Heritage Fund; Major Trusts and Statutory funding programmes. As an agency, we support both national charities and local charities. Our consultants are based right across the UK and we have conducted evaluations for projects in London, Scotland, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Kent, Suffolk and everywhere in between!
We would love to hear from you. Let us know about your evaluation needs and we can discuss how we can help your organisation with our impact evaluation services. We can also provide sample evaluation reports for your reference.