Evaluation and Impact Assessment

Evaluation and Impact Assessment are important tools to help us understand the impact and effectiveness of projects and programmes. As well as satisfying the requirements of funders, evaluation exercises can:

• Help to demonstrate impact – i.e. to boost your profile and potentially secure further funding
• Help to understand what is working well (or not) – i.e. to inform continuous improvement
• Provide participants or service users a voice – i.e. engage beneficiaries in shaping delivery
• Contribute to the evidence base of ‘what works’ – i.e. to share the learning and support the commissioning of future interventions

We have extensive experience of delivering all types of evaluation including:

• Mid-term evaluations – delivered partway through the project to help inform future delivery
• Formative or process evaluations – to explore how the project is set up and operates to improve effectiveness of project processes
• Ex-post, summative or impact evaluations – to explore impact and the extent to which projects have delivered against targets and outcomes

Equally, we have evaluated projects funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, European Structural Funds (ERDF/ESF), UK Shared Prosperity Funds (UKSPF), Levelling-Up funding as well as local authority funding.

Many funders now require projects to develop a monitoring and evaluation plan at the outset to ensure robust plans are in place for evaluation, and we have a long track record helping projects to develop these.