Monitoring and evaluation...we're in it together

It’s a daunting task to begin measuring the effectiveness of your work, both in relation to knowing what to measure and what you might discover. The key to success is the involvement of funders and service users. Exploring the factors that lead to poor performance in current monitoring and evaluation practice offers some supporting evidence.

In recent years some funders (they will remain unnamed) have designed monitoring and evaluation systems in isolation from the projects and services they fund, and then handed them to service deliverers to complete. As a result, these systems feel more like an imposition, rather than a vital check and balance of how our projects and services are performing. At best we feel demotivated, it feels like a chore, and at worst we feel frustration at being asked to measure the wrong things.

Far from entering into a discussion to create a system that works for funders, service deliverers, and service users alike, we tend to jump through hoops by half heartedly completing the monitoring and evaluation reports we inherit. Of course, this keeps the funders happy, which subsequently keeps funding rolling in. But take a longer term view of the situation. It gives funders the false impression that they are collecting the right information, and it hampers our ability to conduct effective monitoring and evaluation. We fail to learn and apply lessons because we lack the relevant data and motivation to do so. Ultimately, it’s our service users that are affected.

However, we are often guilty of committing the same error when it comes to our relationship with stakeholders. If we develop indicators and outcomes in consultation with our funders, we can be a little too convinced our own wisdom. There’s a temptation to second guess what is important to our service users, rather than just asking them. We’re experts, right? This approach can lead to vital information being overlooked, and it can have a knock-on effect on the services we provide. WRVS’s project to capture what is important illustrates this point perfectly.

Until two years ago WRVS measured the effectiveness of its work largely by measuring numbers, for example, how many meals on wheels were delivered on target. The senior management team took the bold decision to ask the question ‘so what?’ They wanted to know what difference their services actually made to service users’ lives. After commissioning researchers to ask service users what really matters to them, WRVS found that some participants in the meals on wheels programme did not eat the meals they received, yet they continued to participate, because the human contact left them feeling less isolated. WRVS still measure the number of meals delivered, but their monitoring and evaluation is now geared towards measuring softer outcomes, such as reduced isolation and increased confidence.

There are, of course, numerous pressures on both funders and service deliverers, which make for an imperfect relationship when it comes to monitoring and evaluation. However, both parties ultimately strive to achieve the same goal: a better standard of living for the people they support. Rather than entrenching old notions of what counts as success, we need to recognise that effective monitoring and evaluation is dependent on the involvement of both funders and service users.

New Philanthropy Capital will release a new publication this month which will explore what funders can do to help charities conduct monitoring and evaluation and demonstrate impact more effectively. Helping grantees focus on impact will be available to download for free from New Philanthropy Capital's website from 16th March

Clothes collections: needing a makeover?

The fundraising technique of clothes collections may be a traditional mainstay for our sector, but has been recently having some perception issues. To donors, charity clothes collections represent a convenient way of giving away items that are no longer wanted; yet the increase in bogus collections means that members of the public can sometimes find it hard to tell a legitimate ask from an unscrupulous one.

To charity fundraisers the collection of clothes for reuse or resale can be a crucial income generator - yet it’s becoming an increasingly crowded marketplace, with donors often receiving many requests from charities to donate items in this way. Add into the mix recent sensational and negative media reports on charity clothes collections, and the public perception of this fundraising form becomes somewhat blurred.

It is heartening to see these issues being taken up at the highest level, with a Government roundtable debate on bogus collections meaning that a joined up discussion with all relevant stakeholders present and engaged took place at the end of last year. The Institute will soon be bringing its House-to-House Code of Fundraising Practice which clarifies the standards required for the charity sector and donors alike.

What is crucial in all of this is for the sector to work together in presenting a united front. We need to acknowledge that there are a range of models of clothes collections which it might suit a particular charity to employ and that there is no standard rule as to which arrangement is better. It depends on the individual circumstances and make up of the charity in question.

At the end of the day, what is at stake is the giving public’s levels of trust and confidence in charities. If there is uncertainty around techniques, what constitutes a legitimate fundraising collection, how charities use donations of clothes and the profits they keep from such gifts, people’s comprehension of the benefits of this form of giving will naturally decline.

Of course, individuals are more inclined to make judgments about a charity based on what they see of its activity first hand. Some people may have experienced the work of a good cause through being a service user or beneficiary. However, more often than not it’s fundraising that is the mode of engagement with individuals. And it stands to reason that the most ‘visible’ forms of fundraising, such as house-to-house, or face-to-face are shop windows for the rest of the sector’s income generating activity.

This all feeds neatly into the Institute’s accountability and transparency agenda; openness around all issues where fundraising is concerned – costs, salaries and required investment alike - is always encouraged. There are some basics of fundraising which should be covered off as standard by charities. One such example is the premise that money raised needs to be used by charities as intended by donors.

There are no two ways about it. The tense times we are still experiencing as a sector mean an increase in charities’ demand for funding. Crucially, it’s up to all of us to fulfill the missions of our organisations and, in all of the fundraising methods we use, engender trust in service users and donors alike.

Louise Richards, Director of Policy and Campaigns, Institute of Fundraising