Evaluation is critical for demonstrating meaningful and long-term impacts of a program. By incorporating evaluation into your projects from the outset, you will be able to show the community, yourself, your funders, and, let’s not forget, potential future funders that you are doing valuable work with specific positive outcomes.
Evaluation also helps identify any areas where your program might be struggling or missing the mark, provides insight as to why, and offers strategies to course correct.
So, are you convinced it’s time to hire an evaluator for your team?! Well, not so fast. Good evaluation often doesn’t require having an evaluation specialist on staff. In fact, many organizations prefer to work with an external evaluator like Carriage House Consulting. Here are a few benefits of an external evaluator to help you consider what would work best for your organization:
Breadth & Depth of Knowledge, Skills, and Resources
An external evaluator lives and breathes evaluation. While your staff members are the subject matter experts, they probably don’t have the kind of in-depth evaluation expertise an external evaluator will bring to the project. An external evaluator has worked with a diverse array of clients and will bring lessons learned, ideas, and insights from other projects they have evaluated. Focusing so heavily on evaluation allows an external evaluator to build up a wealth of evaluation-specific resources and skills. External evaluators can even help connect you with other partners, funding, or resources because of the networks they develop.
Cost-Effectiveness and Efficiency
Many smaller or mid-size organizations, especially non-profits, don’t actually need an internal evaluator on staff, nor would it make sense for their budgets. Effective evaluation probably won’t require forty hours a week of staff time, but it is also a highly specialized skill that can be difficult to tack on to another job function. Instead of worrying about organizational infrastructure, funding, and going through the hiring process for a new staff member, many organizations choose an external evaluator for greater efficiency, cost-savings, and already proven skills. So even if you are one of the “little guys,” don’t fret! Great evaluation is completely doable, affordable, and worthwhile with the help of an external evaluator.
Objectivity and an Outsider’s Perspective
You and your staff are deeply invested in your projects and programs, as you should be! But that can make it harder to look at things objectively and tease out both positives and negatives in a program. An external evaluator brings you the benefit of exactly that, an outsider’s eye. They can identify gaps in logic or things you may have taken for granted. They’re less biased and, at the end of the day, have the freedom to speak with you honestly and walk away, something staff members can’t always do. Even if you truly could do your own evaluation free of bias, by using an external evaluator your evaluation results will be perceived as having greater objectivity and, therefore, greater credibility. Yes, you will have to explain your programs to an outsider and collaborate with one more person, but the time you take to bring in the evaluator can also help you see things in a new light.
If you think an external evaluator might be right for you, contact Carriage House Consulting. We can help you decide whether your organization is ready to bring in an external evaluator, talk through how your projects could benefit from an evaluation, and discuss options for incorporating an evaluation plan. Whether you are looking for an in-depth and ongoing evaluation or just a consultation on designing a strong evaluation plan, Carriage House is here to help!
Email: hello@carriagehouse.consulting
