Sarah's Articles

Although our sector has moved on from the days where evaluation was considered a chore or a paper exercise for funders, people can still find it a daunting subject or task. Hopefully, this article can help by presenting the benefits and value of evaluation – for you, your organisation and your work.

Getting involved with evaluation is a great way to help you improve project planning and delivery.
It should not result in lots of extra work for you. After 13 years of evaluating and co-evaluating, I believe that simple approaches, tailored for each organisation and situation, will help you to measure and record your project’s progress and outcomes as an integral part of the project management process. On an individual level, self-evaluation will enable you to obtain the most from experiences, and put lessons learned into future practice.

Here are some reasons for effective evaluation:
 It’s a way of showing how you and the organisation has improved your practice and understanding through a project
 Evaluation forms a valid and equal part of the creative process, enabling participants, attenders and artists to contribute and feedback on how the project worked for them, as well as you
 Good evaluation is of practical help to you and your organisation for running a project in real time, because you know what the progress has been, and can make changes on an informed basis
 Use it as a decision-making tool when it comes to planning future activity (or trying something new/different)
 Useful when identifying funding sources, as you are able to demonstrate a track record or a need for support in new areas
 A resource for you and the organisation in the future when you are planning other audience development activity
 An archive and resource for publicity, funding and advocacy purposes, because you have a variety of methods, showing success and results
 A grass-roots tool for influencing policy-making and funding decisions, because you are able to demonstrate what works at an organisational/attender/participant level
  There are many online resources nowadays to help you undertake evaluation for whatever purpose you have in mind: an individual project, a national programme; all adapted for different groups in the creative and cultural sectors. The important thing to remember when you are researching different ideas and approaches is that that the evaluation has to support your individual needs if it is going to be effective and purposeful.

I’d like to recommend the Arts Ambassador Resource site to anyone who is looking at ways to engage with their audiences or participants in an active way, that advocates for the aims of their project or organisation.

Visit http://www.artsambassadorresource.com/