Getting Started
Our training, resources and support will help you to ensure that:
- everyone is on board with your evaluation process, and
- you have clear statements about the outcomes of 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?
Resources
How to...budget for self evaluation
In a recent survey Evaluation Support Scotland conducted, 100% of you thought that evaluation was more important now and in the future than it has ever been before. However, only 49% of you ...
Case Studies
ESS Case Study: Learning into practice: Involving service users in setting outcomes (ARC Scotland)
This case study of Progress Scotland’s (an ARC Scotland Project) involvement of service users in the setting of outcomes for the commissioning services with Aberdeen City ...
ESS Case Study; Community Food and Health Scotland - Fife Breakfast Club
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 1.1: Clarifying your aims, outcomes and activities
In order to evaluate successfully you need first to set out what impact you hope to achieve. Only then can you work out whether you have achieved it. Whatever problem you are trying to ...
ESS Support Guide 1.2 - Developing a Logic Model
This guide comes out of work that we did with funding from NHS Health Scotland to help build understanding about logic modelling. For that ...
Thematic Guides and resources
Charities Evaluation Service Discussion Papers
Wide-ranging series of papers written in 2005 introducing evaluation topics: The purpose of evaluation Different ways of seeing evaluation Self-evaluation ...
Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation Guide 2: Planning an Evaluation
This is the second in the Scottish Executive Effective Intervention Unit's Evaluation series. This Guide aims to explain the planning stage of an evaluation by describing the steps necessary ...
Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation Guide 6: Designing an Economic Evaluation
This is the sixth in the Scottish Executive Effective Intervention Unit's Evaluation series. This guide to Economic Evaluation relates inputs and outputs to costs and outcomes to ...
Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation Guide 9: Evaluating Employability Programmes
This is the ninth in the Scottish Executive Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation series. It explains the aims and objectives of employability projects and associated evaluations. It focuses ...
ESS Support Guide 1.2 - Developing a Logic Model
This guide comes out of work that we did with funding from NHS Health Scotland to help build understanding about logic modelling. For that ...
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 ...
Explaining the difference your project makes: A big guide to using an outcomes approach
The guide aims to help you cover the following aspects: identifying, understanding and explaining the need you want to meet being clear about your overall aim and the ...
First Steps in Monitoring and Evaluation; Helping you do better what you do best
This guide has been developed particularly for small voluntary organisations and those with limited experience of monitoring and evaluation. It introduces a five-step approach based ...
LEAP - A model for participatory planning and evaluation in community learning and development
LEAP stands for learning, Evaluation and Planning. There are a number of versions of the LEAP framework. This online resource looks at LEAP for Community Learning and Development. ...
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 ...
Prove and Improve
This guide offers a starting point for exploring evaluation - and in particular, self evaluation of outcomes. Published by Community Evaluation Northern Ireland and funded by the Big Lottery.
Self Evaluation and Enterprise in Schools
Self-evaluation is vital for educational establishments to appraise the quality of pupils' experiences of enterprise in education, and to support planning for improvement. The ...
The Measure of Success: Developing a Balanced Scorecard to measure performance
This report introduces the Balanced Scorecard as a comprehensive view of an organisation’s performance, tying long term goals and priorities with the actions required to achieve them. 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 ...
Your Project and its Outcomes
This booklet provides a glossary explaining what outcomes and impacts are and provides examples of what these might be for different groups. The booklet also looks at the benefits of collecting ...
Tools
Logic model template in excel
One of the action learning sets we did recently had the great idea of using excel to produce a logic model. The main advantage is that you can insert ...
Weaver's Triangle
This tool can help you to clarify the impact you want to make and separate your aims, outcomes and activities. D ownload this word ...
If you cannot find what you are looking for or do not know where to start, please contact us using our support request form
Scottish Charity Number: SC036529, Scottish Company Number: SC284843