Change is not a temporary interruption.  We live in a society where it is increasingly important to demonstrate impact, and to establish the effectiveness and implementation of strategies and major initiatives. 

 

The emphasis of our impact evaluation is forward looking, using the data and insights to inform where your organisation is going and how it best manages change.  The key benefits of research and evaluation are that they drive stronger evidence-based policy and decision-making, inform calculated risk taking and thereby help to deliver better outcomes to customers and service users. 

 

Our impact research and evaluation could be of a whole organisation, a new project or a theme; it may also profile successes or challenges of investments made.  We will work with you from the outset, scoping the work, advising on ways of increasing impact and evaluating the effectiveness of services.  

 

Our commitment is to work as your impact evaluation and research partner, assisting you to make full use of  the findings and supporting you to disseminate them in an accessible form. We work collaboratively with your staff, Board members, stakeholders, service users and volunteers at all stages.

 

Evaluation can challenge received wisdom, creating resistance or resentment within an organisation. We are experienced in helping organisations to manage such responses and can support you to make the best use of research and evaluation findings, to enable organisational development, and to help you reach out to partners and communities of interest and geography.

 

Our approach to research and evaluation is informed by the best practice of the UK Evaluation Society and the Social Research Association. It includes:

• Establishing baselines from which you can show ‘distance travelled’ and the reasons for change
• Reviewing performance against objectives and testing the impact of interventions
• Exploring the organisation’s theory of change
• Building an evaluation framework for your organisation
• Supporting the collection of data and information, both quantitative and qualitative
• Discussing and agreeing methodologies, tools, and literature and systematic reviews appropriate to organisational circumstances and context
• Running focus groups, interviews and surveys, and carrying out consultations 
• Including leaders, change champions and service users/customers in the research process – building the capacity of individuals and the organisation
• Evaluating outcomes and impact
• Presenting the results to Boards, executive teams, staff and stakeholders.