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?
Events & Training
Be sure to read this booking information.
Resources
Case Studies
ESS Case Study: Community Food and Health Scotland - Peterhead Confidence to Cook
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 - 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 ...
Thematic Guides and resources
Addressing the challenges for evaluation
This paper is for people with a role in commissioning, funding or evaluating ...
Becoming More Effective
This is an introduction to monitoring and evaluation for refugee community organisations.
Befriending and Mentoring Evaluation Resource Pack
This resource pack was comissioned by Befriending Network Scotland, Scottish Mentoring Network and Evaluation Support Scotland to support projects to undertake monitoring ...
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 1: Definitions and Common Concepts
Produced by the Scottish Executive's Effective Interventions Unit, each guide in this series provides straightforward guidance on the topic which is supplemented by a range of ...
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 ...
Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation Guide10: Evaluating Community Engagement
This is the tenth guide in the Scottish Executive Effective Interventions Unit Evaluation series. It looks at evaluating community engagement strategies and activities. It discusses the ...
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 Guidance for Practitioners: A Practical Guide to Evaluating Drug Education and Prevention Services for Young People (by Richard Ives)
This guide introduces the process of evaluation. It looks at the basics (what is the difference between monitoring and evaluation) as well as specifics of evaluating drug education and ...
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 ...
General Evaluation Advice for learning and Teaching
This group of resources from the University of Sheffield provides general advice for those planning to undertake an evaluation of change in their learning and teaching who have little or no ...
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. ...
Making the Case - Social Added Value Guide
The guide helps organisations in the social economy to demonstrate the social added value that is intrinsic to services they deliver. It offers a recognised way to measure the ...
Managing Outcomes - A Guide for Homelessness Organisations
This guide has been written for people working in the homelessness field. It provides definitions and examples of identifying outcomes, explores the different perspectives of stakeholder groups ...
Measuring Impact Toolkit
A free, downloadable, colourful and visual guide that covers all aspects of getting to grips with measuring impact. It is particularly relevant to organisations working with children and ...
Mental Health Improvement: Evidence and Practice - Guide 1: Evidence Based Practice
This is the first in a series of Evaluation Guides that aim to encourage, support and improve standards in the evaluation of mental health improvement initiatives. This guide aims to help ...
Mental Health Improvement: Evidence and Practice - Guide 2: Measuring Success
This guide aims to help develop indicators to gauge progress and assess the effectiveness of mental health improvement interventions. Covers the use of consultation to develop robust, valid and ...
Mental Health Improvement: Evidence and Practice - Guide 3: Getting Results
This is the third in a series of Evaluation Guides, which aim to encourage, support and improve standards in the evaluation of mental health improvement initiatives. This guide gives an overview ...
Mental Health Improvement: Evidence and Practice - Guide 4: Making an Impact
This is the fourth in a series of Evaluation Guides, which aim to encourage, support and improve standards in the evaluation of mental health improvement initiatives. impact. This guide discusses ...
Monitoring and Evaluating: Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Programme
This is an introductory guide to monitoring and evaluation for workers in the field of youth substance abuse prevention. It is not a detailed guide on how to evaluate but contains useful ...
Monitoring and Evaluation for Paths to Health Projects
This guide, produced by Paths for All outlines the evaluation and monitoring needs of Paths to Health projects. It also outlines how to evaluate an overall programme of Paths for All projects.
Passport to Evaluation
This guide produced by the Home Office and updated May 2009, looks at the basic techniques used to evaluate crime reduction projects. It explains evaluation within a ...
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.
Prove it - Measuring the effect of neighbourhood renewal on local people.
The handbook addresses questions such as ‘whether and what to measure’. It also looks at the benefits and pitfalls of involving local people. The handbook ...
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 Power of Proof - An Evaluation Primer
This is an online resource from the USA based Tobacco Technical Assistance Consortium. It coers the whole process of evaluation from planning to reporting. It uses examples from tobacco control ...
The Program Manager's Guide to Evaluation
This is a very clearly written guide to the evaluation process, covering self evaluation and external evaluation. It takes the reader through the whole process and includes lots of useful ...
The Programme Managers Guide to Evaluation (Children's Services)
Nine chapters cover what, why and how to evaluate and learn from evaluation. By US Department of Health & Human Services (December 2003) Chapter 1 looks at ...
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
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