Your grant guidelines require an evaluation, but you’re having trouble getting someone to write one.

The clock is ticking.

Do you write your own?

I’d advise not, but I’ve done it more times than I can count.

Just in time for the holidays, here’s my “recipe” for a quick and effective evaluation that you can use in a pinch.

Pre-Heat the Oven to 450 Degrees

Things are about to heat up – take a breath, get to a quiet place, and let’s start.

Line Your Pan with a Research Question

An evaluation doesn’t simply assess how well things work. An evaluation tests how well your approach works to address a specific problem.

So, if your program provides rapid-response housing counseling and temporary emergency assistance to aid homeless veterans, you’re not simply asking, “how many veterans did we place in housing?” Or even a general question such as, “How effective was my program in addressing veteran homelessness?”

Your research question should focus on your approach, as in, “To what extent does a housing-first approach contribute to lower rates of homelessness among low-income veterans?”

Be sure to use neutral language (“to what extent …” rather than, “How great an increase will …”) and center your evaluation plan on this question.

Measure Your Ingredients

What are you measuring, how does it align with your goals and objectives, and how can you verify the information?

By now you know that outputs are the products you can count, or in this baking metaphor, your menu items and serving size. Eg. when you’ve finished baking, you’ll have enough baked chicken to serve 4.

Outcomes, in contrast, are your final results. After mixing the ingredients and baking for 20 minutes you’ll have … dinner; a way to feed your family. Relatives who are no longer "hangry." The conditions have changed, and likely attitude and behaviors as well.

How do you get to outcomes? You’ll have inputs such as baking pans, chicken, coating, an oven, heat, etc.  But since you’re assessing your approach, you’ll want to look at the decisions you made regarding how to make your chicken – your cooking temperature, cooking time, pan type and quality, quantity of chicken.

To return to the example of a veteran program, your “ingredients” may include the frequency and dosage of counseling, time to housing placement, and the amount and type of temporary assistance provided.

Sprinkle in Data Collection

How will you collect the information you’ll be evaluating? More than likely, you’ll rely on program records, surveys, focus groups, formal observations, or document review.

Data collection must be appropriate for the kind of data you’re collecting. If you want to measure the amount of temporary financial assistance provided to help veterans, for example, you wouldn’t survey them – you’d review program records.

(If you can figure out to discuss data collection in baking terms, you’re a better person than me.)

Sift Through Improvements

Evaluations aren’t just final reports that you provide to your funder.

Evaluations are meant to give you specific feedback that you can use to improve your program. When creating an evaluation plan, be sure to include meetings to review formative evaluation results – reports that happen periodically during the program – and a process to use this feedback to adjust your program approach.

Here, I can return to the baking metaphor: What if you burn your chicken? That’s pretty clear feedback. Try setting the heat lower on your next batch or cooking for less time.

If you assess that next batch of chicken and tweak the recipe again, well, that’s now you’re engaged in continuous improvement.

PRO Tip:   A logic model helps you to visually assemble the pieces of your evaluation, to see how inputs and activities link to outputs and outcomes, as well as how your approach works to solve specific problems.

Next Steps

Hire an evaluator. Seriously – a good evaluator will help you to improve good programs and set the stage for scaling great programs.

Judie Eisenberg, the ProposalPRO, has won over $500 million in government grants and contracts in a career spanning 25+ years. She blogs about writing and winning government grants at www.proposalpro.com and on Twitter @ProposalPRO.

Teaser photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash