Collecting information
This step will help you to:
- find different ways to collect information about the difference you are making and
- fit evaluation into your project or organisation.

Getting Started
Do you know why evaluation is important? Are staff and managers motivated to get started? Do you have clear statements about the difference you want to make as an organisation?
Collecting Information
Do you have statements that help you recognise the impact that you have? Do you have the right systems to enable you to measure what you do, and the difference that you make?
Using Consultants (Optional)
Do you know what you want from an external evaluation, and can you communicate that? Do you know how to go about commissioning consultants?
Analysing & Reporting
Do you know how to analyse the information you collect? Can you write a report about what you've done and the difference you've made?
Learn from your Findings
Do you know how to use the findings to improve your service? Do you know how to share your findings with others?
Events & Training
Be sure to read this booking information.
Resources
Case Studies
ESS Case Study: Community Food and Health - Little Leithers
The Community Food and Health Scotland (CFHS) Self-evaluation Collaborative is a partnership between CFHS, ESS and six community food and health projects. It involves three ...
ESS Case Study: Community Food and Health Scotland: Hidden Gardens
The Community Food and Health Scotland (CFHS) Self-evaluation Collaborative is a partnership between CFHS, ESS and six community food and health projects. It involves three ...
ESS Support Guides
ESS Support Guide 2.1: Developing and using indicators
Evaluation is about working out what difference you are making through your services or activities. The changes or differences you hope to make are your outcomes (see Evaluation Support Guide 1 ...
ESS Support Guide 2.2: Using interviews and questionnaires to evaluate your project
This guide covers some of the more traditional approaches to collect information for your evaluation: questionnaires, interviews and group interviews (focus groups) and gives advice on how to ...
ESS Support Guide 2.3: Visual Approaches
This guide covers some visual approaches you can use to collect information for evaluation: relationship maps, service use maps, lifelines, body maps and evaluation wheels and gives advice on how ...
ESS Support Guide 2.4: Using Technology to Evaluate your Work
This guide covers some ways you can use technology to collect information for evaluation: video, digital photographs and audio recording. These can be used independently or ...
ESS Support Guide 2.5: Storing Information
This guide looks at how to store the information you need to use in evaluation.
ESS Support Guide 3.4 - Using Qualitative Information for Evaluation
This guide will help you to think through how you can make use of qualitative information in evaluation. It looks at what qualitative information you might ...
Thematic Guides and resources
Addressing the challenges for evaluation
This paper is for people with a role in commissioning, funding or evaluating ...
Data Protection Act
All the information you need on the Data Protection Act.
Ethical Evaluation
Advice for ethical evaluation, specifically of interest to those involved in learning and teaching but with wider relevance.
Evaluating Community Projects - A Practical Guide
by Marilyn Taylor, Derrick Purdue, Mandy Wilson and Pete Wilde These guidelines were developed as part of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Programme to help 20 community and voluntary ...
Evaluation Journey
This is an introductory guide to evaluation in Plain English with a good number of case studies. Published by Ash Scotland it focuses on health work but is useful for anyone who needs a good ...
NPC Wellbeing Measure
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC)'s Well-being Measure is an online ...
Outcomes Star website
The Outcomes Star™ is a unique tool for supporting and measuring change when working with vulnerable people. It is widely used and is: Underpinned by an explicit model of change
Paul Hamlyn Foundation Evaluation Resource Pack
This comprehensive pack from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation takesd the reader through the whole process of evaluation. It is clearly written and well explained, covering the pros and cons of a ...
The W.K Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook
This handbook provides a fairly in-depth look at some basic questions, such as the limitations of scientific methods in evaluation. One of the key aims of evaluation for the Kellogg ...
Toolkit to Measure The Added Value of Voluntary and Community Based Activity
The toolkit is intended to enable both funders and ...
Tools
Big Picture Route Map
This cartoon map has different vehicles, routes and characters. This visual tool can help participants reflect on their current situation or experience of an event and to help start discussions ...
Employability Skills Wheel
A word document that gives an example of how a 'wheel' tool can be used to gather information on where clients feel they are in relation to a set of ...
ESS's Action Plan Template
This word template is a simple tool to help you plan your monitoring and evaluation. It makes you set out the indicators appropriately for each outcomes and then work out how you are going to ...
Evaluation Tree
This visual tool is often used with children and young people to explore how they feel, however it can be used in other settings and with other groups.
Evaluation Wheel
This tool is described in our "ESS Evaluation Support Guide 4: Using visual Approaches" to evaluate your Project. The wheel allows users to plot progress to or ...
NPC Wellbeing Measure
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC)'s Well-being Measure is an online ...
Outcomes Star website
The Outcomes Star™ is a unique tool for supporting and measuring change when working with vulnerable people. It is widely used and is: Underpinned by an explicit model of change
Survey Monkey
One of the pieces of data that fed into our 2006-7 self-evaluation report was the findings from our on-line stakeholder survey. We used
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