Program Evaluation Toolkit for Harm Reduction Organizations
Determining your resource availability – the resources you have available to launch and carry out a program evaluation – is critical. The resources you’ll need can be grouped into “people resources” and “project resources.”
A good evaluator is always asking ,"Are we reaching our scheduled goals and is our timeline being followed as planned?" An evaluation itself must have a mechanism for understanding how long processes are taking and when deadlines need to be met.
Voices from the Field: Al Forbes
“Sometimes my agencies would find themselves in the last quarter and realize, "Oh shoot, we did not do the work we needed to do. Now we gotta to hurry up and get things done." I said a true evaluation analysis would look at that [progress] month by month, quarter by quarter. So when you're halfway through the grant and you're supposed to reach a thousand people and you’ve only done five, you should know, before you get to your last quarter, that you’re behind in making adjustments.”
When it comes to planning around your people or staffing resources, consider the following:
Regarding your project resources, consider the following:
In addition to assessing your resource availability, formulating an evaluation timeline that aligns with your program needs and requirements is crucial. Knowing what the firm or unmovable deadlines are allows you and your evaluation team to be able to realistically map out an evaluation timeline that is both feasible and realistic. Below are some additional considerations when developing a timeline for your harm reduction program evaluation effort.
Determine when the program milestones and deadlines are and work backwards.
Leave some wiggle room to account for delays.
Be flexible and open to pivoting if needed.
Maintain clear and consistent lines of communication about timelines with the evaluation team and others.
