We’ve all heard the warning when it comes to lengthy evaluation reports – make sure it’s useful or it will end up in a dark corner of the office, collecting dust on a shelf, never to be seen again…
Here’s the thing, we’re not here to make your life difficult. At Health in Common, we work to keep your reports concise and engaging, yet thorough – no matter the audience. We want you to actually use your findings; not just forward the report to your funders and continue on like the evaluation never happened. We want your findings to help you improve your work, share what you’ve learned, and celebrate success.
Improve your work
We are all striving for better programs so, this one is obvious. It may even be the reason you undertook an evaluation in the first place.
During an evaluation with Wayfinders Manitoba, a dashboard was developed to track volunteer hours. In turn, the dashboard helped support internal decision-making.
Share what you’ve learned
Knowledge is power – consider who you want to share findings with and why. If you want to use results to advocate for policy change, you might present them differently than if you were trying to spark general program interest.
In 2020, we summarized stakeholder feedback for Educalme Classroom; they shared the results on their website that highlights program benefits.
Celebrate success
Acknowledging what has been done well is just as important as making improvements when an evaluation is complete. Celebrating success (even if it’s small!) is motivating and creates buy-in with your stakeholders.
How you use your evaluation results in the real world?
Need help telling your story? Reach out, hello@leading4impact.ca
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