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You could almost hear the neurons firing as she paused for thought: What’s a common analogy that might help people get their heads around evaluation? “Checking the weather,” Julia Coburn said confidently.
Yup, it seems to work. People check the weather all the time. It takes only a minute, but can make the difference between arriving at work dry, or soaked to the skin.
Evaluation is also planning tool. When it is hard-wired into the workflow, as opposed to plugged in occasionally, evaluation gives organizations constant feedback on the performance of projects and programs. It lights up problems before they become soggy messes dripping on the boardroom floor.
Capacity Canada is getting into evaluation in a big way this year. It’s setting up EvalU, a program that includes boot camps and one-on-one coaching to encourage groups in the not-for-profit sector to adopt evaluation as a cultural norm.
Coburn is Capacity’s evaluation project co-ordinator, working with long-time Capacity collaborators Tanya Darisi and Megan Conway to create a comprehensive evaluation-training program for charitable not-for-profits in Ontario.
Plans are still taking shape, but Capacity will host the first EvalU boot camps this fall.
More will follow in 2016-17, all of it in line with a $405,000 grant Capacity received in March from the Ministry of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade.
Besides the boot camps, the program includes
- One-on-one coaching to help leaders apply what they learn in the boot camps to action in their organizations;
- Practice sessions in which groups that have a common connection can put together and implement an evaluation strategy;
- Peer-to-peer meetups — informal sessions where workers can share ideas about creating an evaluation culture;
- An online resource centre.
But to get the point where they are adopting evaluation as good practice, organizations have to change how they view it in the first place. “It’s a bit like going to the dentist,” Darisi said. “People know it’s a good idea, but dread the experience.” Used infrequently and in haste, evaluation is almost guaranteed to hurt. As a strategy, however, evaluation can be painless.
When evaluation functions as an ongoing process, humming away in the background, it helps build a “stronger sense of how things are going and what needs to be adjusted,” Darisi said. Organizations become more nimble, she added, responding quickly to such things as proposal calls. They already have up-to-date information at hand.
“When it’s embedded, (evaluation) fuels a culture of learning in the organization,” Darisi said. “When you have a culture of learning, you have a better foundation for being innovative, and taking risks, and being more responsive and effective at achieving your mission.”
It’s a lesson borrowed from the startup sector, said Coburn, cofounder of an online educational platform called WorldVuze. “You create something, you test it, you make it better,” she said. “You’re trying to maximize your social impact.”
Organizations that take a more strategic approach to evaluation will also find themselves joining a global movement: EvalPartners and the United Nations Evaluation Group declared 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation. It draws attention to the importance of evidence and analytics as the means by which minds are changed. And lives improved.
