The job you do making the world a better place is rewarding, but it can be demanding. Recruiting and managing volunteers, ensuring each participant is eligible, or obtaining support for programs are all critical aspects of working in the social sector. So making time for all of the tasks associated with evaluation—collecting and organizing information, analyzing data, and summarizing information for other people—can seem daunting or downright impossible. These three strategies can make the process more manageable:
  • Use information you already have. You are already interacting with participants, collecting things like attendance or completion, and observing changes. This data is valuable – spend time reflecting on what you already know and the questions you can answer.
  • Build processes into your existing work. Doing a separate activity like convening a focus group or mailing out a survey takes time and often costs money. You might be able to build evaluation into your existing activities – for example, have participants vote on an issue most important to them, or describe how they have changed, during a program activity.
  • Use information regularly.  Don’t save up information for some future report. Use staff meetings, a weekly check-in, or some other regular event on your calendar to reflect on findings regularly and identify ways that you will use the information.
Additional tips: if people write short or long answers on evaluation forms, you can paste their data right into Wordle (wordle.net) to determine how prevalent different themes and concepts are. Using charts and tables can provide a quick snapshot that will make it easier to understand and use information.