In this wrap-up of our recent theme: ‘Creativity’ you will find examples of creativity in evaluation that we have shared over the past few months.
When we talk about creativity in evaluation, we mean thinking creatively about how you can find out what difference your work has made.
Creative thinking can be used in every stage of the evaluation process – but it is especially useful when considering methods.
As such, we chose to introduce this theme with a blog about how to get creative with evaluation methods. Find the blog here.
Throughout the theme we shared examples of creative methods being put into practice.
Method: Sticky Wall
If you’ve worked with us before, you’ll know how much we love a sticky wall – this method is a great way to collect qualitative feedback about outcomes from a large group. It can be particularly useful to find out whether you have achieved what you were hoping to at an event.
During the theme, the Peer Support and Learning Team from Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCiL), got in touch to share a great example of how they got creative by using the sticky wall method!
“We asked attendees to share their experiences with peer support in the context of LCiL. Once everyone had added their ideas, we used the responses to map out the peer support journey — from how individuals find out about LCiL/peer support, to their experiences during the process, and the outcomes they achieve.
This exercise helped us better understand how to improve our event signposting and gave us valuable insight into what our service users value most and hope to gain from attending our peer support groups.”
– Alexandra McKenzie, Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living.
Method: Using contact forms to gather evidence during a call
Our method sheet “Using contact forms to gather evidence during a call” illustrates how you could collect useful information remotely.
Using this method Pain Concern were able to move away from gathering information about the quality of the calls and customer satisfaction, and move towards collecting information relating to their outcomes.
Methods: Interview & Choosing pictures
The interview method is useful for combining different types of questions and collecting in-depth qualitative information. While choosing pictures is useful for enabling people to speak more fully and descriptively about their thoughts and circumstances. Pictures can be used as a diversionary tool with children and adults to prompt conversation, or more directly as an evaluation tool to give feedback on a service.
Using a combination of semi-structured interviews and picture print outs, ARC Scotland were able to involve the people that they support in setting and measuring outcomes. Find the full evaluation story here.
Creativity can also be used when reporting
While most funders request conventional reports or online reports to capture impact, some organisations feel there are better ways to tell their story about the difference they make to people’s lives.
LEAP Project took a creative approach when reporting to the The National Lottery Community Fund. For one area of their work, loneliness and isolation, they created a video.
“The video is powerful because it shows what people think of us; feel about us and the difference we make to their health and wellbeing. Client stories play a huge part in the qualitative feedback for us.”
This example shows how funders that are flexible with their reporting requirements help funded organisations tell their story. Find the case-study here.
ESS Evaluation Method: Sticky wall
A sticky wall is one way to collect qualitative feedback about outcomes from a large group.
ESS Evaluation Method: Using contact forms to gather evidence during a call
ESS has developed this resource for those organisations who have recently adapted to remote delivery in light of COVID-19.
ESS Evaluation Method: Interview
One to one discussions to investigate people’s perceptions, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes.
ESS Evaluation Method: Choosing pictures
This method can be used with a group or as a one to one activity. People are invited to pick a card in response to a specific question or idea.
Evaluation Stories
ARC Scotland
Jackie from ARC Scotland applied her learning from ESS workshops to involve people with learning disabilities in setting outcomes for service commissioning.
Evaluation Stories
Pain Concern
We ran a tailored support session to help Pain Concern create a logic model, this enabled them to effectively redesign their feedback collection methods.
Blog
Getting creative with evaluation methods
By doing things like taking photographs, collecting feedback or making observations you are collecting evidence. Creative thinking can help you decide how to capture this evidence, and how to use it for evaluation. Click here to find out how!
Our principles for good evaluation can help you to judge if you are happy with your evaluation. Using creative evaluation methods, as exemplified above, can help you meet our principle ‘Good evaluation should involve the people you support’.
Find our 5 Principles for Good Evaluation here.
Follow along on social media as we begin our next theme!
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