Edinburgh Food Project

Edinburgh Food Project (EFP) runs food banks in Edinburgh and works to break the cycle of food poverty. They offer dignified immediate relief for people experiencing poverty, access to other support to address the causes of poverty, and they advocate for social change.

Over the course of 10 months we ran a series of support sessions with the Edinburgh Food Project.

The support was mostly about creating a new evaluation framework for the Edinburgh Food Project – that is, outcomes, indicators, and methods for the whole organisation.

We supported the creation of surveys, we helped with the analysis of data, and we facilitated the whole staff team to make sense of and act on the evidence!

What difference did we make?

The Edinburgh Food Project now have clear outcomes and an evaluation plan in place, and evaluation methods they have tested and improved!

“This evaluation process has been helpful, enjoyable and easy to understand. I particularly valued ESS’s focus on being realistic and meaningful. We’ll continue to work with ESS to help us continue to embed our evaluation practice.”

Bethany Bigger, CEO of Edinburgh Food Project

What did we learn?

This work was successful because there was time to develop the evaluation plan and we were able to go through the whole evaluation cycle:

Setting outcomes and indicators

Measuring them through the surveys

Analysing and acting on/using the findings.

One of the key findings of this work was the importance for clients of feeling welcomed and not being stigmatised. This came out most strongly in quotes – which shows the value of having qualitative as well as quantitative survey questions!

See below for the case-study that this story is based on:

Our principles for good evaluation can help you to judge if you are happy with your evaluation. They are used within this story to highlight the principles that are being demonstrated.