How to scope a program evaluation for a community organisation

Identify who will use the evaluation

Name the people who need the findings and the decision ahead. The evaluation may support improvement, a funding review or a choice about continuing a pilot. Establish when the evidence must be available and how the organisation will respond.

Avoid starting with a method such as a survey or a set of interviews. Those choices should follow the questions. A small organisation may gain more from a carefully scoped review of delivery and participant experience than from a broad impact claim its available evidence cannot support.

Agree a manageable set of questions

BetterEvaluation distinguishes high-level evaluation questions from questions asked in an interview or questionnaire [1]. Use this distinction to keep the brief focused. A main question might concern whether the programme reaches its intended participants; interviews and records then provide evidence relevant to it.

Consider delivery, experience, access and intended change. Ask what evidence is feasible for each question and whether conclusions will require a baseline or comparison. If the programme began without that information, state the limitation and design the evaluation around what can credibly be learned.

Match evidence with organisational capacity

Create a register of records, previous reports and relevant participant feedback. Check the quality and permissions associated with each source. Discuss whether collecting new information would be burdensome or duplicate an existing process. An evaluation plan should account for staff time as well as consultant time.

Use more than one form of evidence where it helps answer the question. Attendance records describe participation, while conversations can explore experience and reasons for leaving. Neither automatically establishes causation. Agree how findings will be checked and how differences or missing information will be reported.

Plan the handover and use of findings

Request outputs suited to the audience: a concise findings report, an evidence summary, prioritised recommendations and a discussion with the staff responsible for changes. Specify editable materials where they will help ongoing monitoring. Clarify review points and who approves a public summary.

Keep conclusions aligned with evidence. A report can describe observed change or a plausible contribution without claiming the programme caused every outcome. Soft Infrastructure can help scope programme design, review and evaluation work for community organisations, with methods and deliverables proportionate to the questions and resources.

• Intended users, decision and timing are defined.
• Evaluation questions guide methods.
• Evidence quality, access and limitations are recorded.
• Recommendations have a planned discussion and response.

Put this into practice

• Explore programme design and evaluation
• Link evaluation with implementation