"A review of eight projects with end-of-project and post project evaluation reports suggest that post project evaluations can contribute to better understanding of the sustainability of project impacts and identify unexpected and emerging outcomes years after project close. The review highlights som
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e of the methodological issues that are unique to post project (as opposed to end of project) evaluation, and point to the advantages of planning for sustainability measurement from the outset of the project. In the majority of cases, the sampling approach adopted at the endline proved challenging to replicate post project because it was not designed to measure sustainability, or because of access to or demographic changes in the beneficiary population. Finding suitable projects for this review was difficult because so few post project evaluations are done, fewer are publically available, fewer still had comparable final evaluations and included local voices. Agencies that fund post project evaluations offer a range of reasons for doing so: to learn, to promote a success, to inform replication or scale, to provide justification for future funding, to promote accountabilities. What is less explicit is how findings are used within implementing and donor agencies, shared with partners, and influence future programming. As part of this report, Valuing Voices offers an evaluability checklist for doing a post project evaluation from the onset of the project, and a checklist for measuring sustainability through the entire project cycle." (Abstract)
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"Experimental approaches work by comparing changes in a group that receives a development intervention with a group that does not. The difference is then attributed to the intervention. In a full experimental approach, units are randomly allocated to two groups – one that receives the intervention
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and one that does not. In a quasi-experimental approach non-random methods of assignment are used instead." (Introduction)
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"Contribution analysis is a methodology used to identify the contribution a development intervention has made to a change or set of changes. The aim is to produce a credible, evidence-based narrative of contribution that a reasonable person would be likely to agree with, rather than to produce concl
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usive proof. Contribution analysis can be used during a development intervention, at the end, or afterwards." (Introduction)
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"A real-time evaluation (RTE) is designed to provide immediate (real time) feedback to those planning or implementing a project or programme, so that they can make improvements. This feedback is usually provided during the evaluation field work, rather than afterwards. RTEs are normally associated w
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ith emergency response or humanitarian interventions." (Introduction)
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"Demystifying Evaluation is an accessible introductory guide explaining the options open to evaluators and how to make appropriate choices of research methods, covering issues such as managing expectations of evaluation, quantitative and qualitative methods, engaging stakeholders and providing actio
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n-orientated approaches to help end-users." (Publisher description)
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"At the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, we believe that evaluation is an effective management tool to both inform strategy development and track the progress and impact of strategy implementation. We have long been committed to supporting our grantees’ ability to derive and share lessons learned from the
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ir work. To that end, the foundation published the first Evaluation Handbook (The Kellogg Foundation, 1998) almost two decades ago to guide evaluation for our grantees. Since that time, as the discipline of evaluation grew and expanded, the demand for evaluation has risen. More and more nonprofit leaders and practitioners strive to design evidence-based programs, and more and more funders require their grantees to provide evidence to demonstrate the success of their funded work. The democratization of evaluation makes it necessary that evaluation is both rigorous and practical. How to achieve the balance motivated us to update the handbook. Over the years, the foundation has learned a lot from our grantees about the challenges of evaluation. This handbook is our continuous effort to demystify evaluation and facilitate its use, for the foundation’s grantees and for all organizations committed to learning and strengthening their work. It is designed for people who have little to no exposure to formal evaluation training and provides a starting point for them as they consider evaluating their work. It is intended to help them become more informed consumers of evaluation. Evaluations can be simple or extensive depending on the scope and complexity of the work being evaluated. The scope of the evaluation could potentially include a single program, a multi-site initiative, or a multifaceted strategy aimed at systems and community change. Regardless of the complexity of the effort, the basics for evaluating it remain the same and this handbook was written to impart information about these basics." (Foreword)
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"As part of our ongoing work to strengthen our support for communities, the trustees and staff of the Otto Bremer Trust engaged in a series of learning seminars on evaluation. In order to make the core concepts easily accessible and retrievable, we asked Michael Quinn Patton, who led the seminars, t
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o create a set of basic reference cards. These became the Evaluation Flash Cards presented here, with the idea that a core concept can be revisited “in a flash.”
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"The goal of this handbook is to provide guidance to practitioners and organizations interested in evaluating mental health prevention and early intervention (PEI) programs. In the course of developing an evaluation plan for a series of PEI programs implemented statewide by the California Mental Hea
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lth Services Authority (CalMHSA), we found many resources that discussed general approaches to evaluating mental health programs and policies but few that discussed how to tailor an evaluation approach to mental health PEI activities in particular. PEI activities may require different evaluation strategies than treatment interventions do. First, the activities being administered are different in that they are not clinical interventions. Indeed, PEI activities are highly diverse and provided in many different types of nonclinical settings. Thus, the process outcomes that are used as indicators of successful implementation tend to look different for PEI interventions." (Introduction)
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"An impact grid is a tool that helps stakeholders involved in a development intervention to analyse multiple changes by mapping those changes onto a grid. A typical grid charts the extent of change alongside the degree of contribution of the intervention. Impact grids can be used for many different
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purposes. They are only normally used after enough time has elapsed for changes to emerge." (Introduction)
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"Process tracing is a qualitative analysis methodology. The main purpose of process tracing is to establish whether, and how, a potential cause or causes influenced a specified change or set of changes. This is done by applying formal tests to examine the strength of evidence linking potential cause
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s to the changes. Process tracing also involves testing alternative ideas about how change might have come about." (Introduction)
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"There are many different types of evaluation. Each type has its own set of processes and/or principles. Many factors influence decisions over what type of evaluation to use. Evaluations can be categorised according to their purpose, who conducts them, when they are carried out, the broad approach u
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sed, and cross-cutting themes. Many CSO evaluations don’t use any particular methodology or approach." (Introduction)
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"This book argues for an overhaul of the way media assistance is evaluated, and explores how new thinking about evaluation can reinforce the shifts towards better media development. The pursuit of media freedom has been the bedrock of media development since its height in the 1990s. Today, citizen v
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oice, participation, social change, government responsiveness and accountability, and other ‘demand-side’ aspects of governance, are increasingly the rubric within with assistance to media development operates." (Publisher description)
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"A participatory evaluation actively involves key stakeholders, especially the intended beneficiaries of a project or programme, in the design and implementation of the evaluation. Participatory evaluations can be carried out for many reasons. The two most common are to empower beneficiaries to bett
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er analyse and improve their own situations, and to produce better and more reliable findings and recommendations." (Introduction)
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"The Most Significant Change (MSC) technique is a form of participatory monitoring and evaluation. It involves the collection and selection of stories of change, produced by programme or project stakeholders. MSC can be used in projects and programmes where it is not possible to precisely predict de
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sired changes beforehand, and is therefore difficult to set pre-defined indicators of change." (Introduction)
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"Developmental evaluation involves long-term relationships between evaluators and project or programme staff. Evaluation is ongoing, which means that feedback can be provided on a continuous basis. Development evaluation is particularly appropriate for projects or programmes working in complex or un
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certain environments. It is primarily designed to support learning and management decision-making." (Introduction)
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"Utilisation-focused evaluations (UFEs) are based on the principle that an evaluation should be judged according to how useful it is. UFEs should be planned and implemented in a way that increases the likelihood of the findings being used. This normally means identifying the primary users of an eval
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uation and ensuring that they are engaged in decision-making throughout the process." (Introduction)
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"This book presents a number of innovative ways of reporting, including different options for presentations, narrative summaries, presenting findings visually and making use of digital outputs. Kylie also discusses how to make sure your messages get through to your audience - including using a layer
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ing strategy to present your key messages in different levels of depth across multiple content types, and advice on making these message 'sticky'." (https://betterevaluation.org)
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"El poder atribuir los cambios a nuestra intervención es el principal desafío de los evaluadores. Conceptos como eficacia, eficiencia e impacto ocupan la atención de los evaluadores. Pero ¿este es el único enfoque para evaluar los cambios y las trasformaciones vinculadas a nuestras intervencion
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es? ¿Qué sucedería si consideramos a la intervención como el "cliente" y al donante como una parte interesada, junto a las comunidades y a otras instituciones y actores que puedan beneciarse o perjudicarse con el proyecto? ¿Qué pasaría si en lugar de medir impactos reexionamos sobre las consecuencias éticas y políticas de nuestra intervención?. ¿Y si ponemos en valor la sostenibilidad de los cambios en lugar de evaluar el cumplimiento (o justicar el incumplimiento) de las actividades previstas?" (Contratapa)
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