Program Evaluation Toolkit for Harm Reduction Organizations
Are you a team of one with many competing priorities, or is your team constantly sharing that there isn’t enough time in the day to get things done? When so much of the work consists of making a way out of no way, taking time to assess your program’s capacity for evaluation might seem like a silly concept. However, for the purposes of preparing for an evaluation process, being mindful of your true capacities is an important step in accurately scaling your evaluation effort to match what is both realistic and accomplishable. The following assessment is a helpful tool to facilitate an awareness of your program’s capacity to engage in evaluation work.
Table (2.2). These questions can help you assess your program’s evaluation capacity.
| Institutional Readiness | YES | NO | UNSURE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is there support for conducting evaluation from your organization’s leadership (e.g., the board of directors or executive director)? | |||
| Does the culture in your organization support information sharing, discussion and learning, and an openness to new ideas in decision making? | |||
| Is your organization willing and able to allocate the necessary resources to the evaluation process (e.g., time, staff, funding)? | |||
| Are there systems in place within your organization for data collection, storage, processing, analysis, and/or reporting? |
| Program Readiness | YES | NO | UNSURE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is there agreement about what the program you intend to evaluate is supposed to accomplish in the short- and long-term? | |||
| Do stakeholders share an understanding of how the intervention operates (i.e., how the program is supposed to accomplish its aims)? | |||
| Are there preliminary signs that the program is functioning well? | |||
| Are there any upcoming external factors that could prevent the program from reaching its intended outcomes, such as potential changes in funding or policy? |
Based on the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness Program Evaluability Assessment.
If you answered “no” or “unsure” to some of these questions, it may be wise to consider what needs to happen to prepare your organization for program evaluation. Perhaps you and your team would benefit from having some internal conversations about how your program is supposed to be accomplishing its goals, or you might need to figure out how to dedicate the resources needed to do your evaluation right. It is also possible that you may find that delaying your evaluation plans until your organization has found its footing is the wisest course at this time. Keep in mind that preparation is a process and, no matter where you are starting from, there is always room to grow and evolve.
See below for resources that may assist you in building your program evaluation capacity:
