ESS has a new strategic plan to guide our work in the next four years. Click here to see our Strategic Plan.
The plan enables us to support third sector organisations and funders with their evaluation and learning and gives us scope to develop new areas of work.
Our mission to support the third sector to demonstrate the difference they make has not changed. We will meet the needs of organisations at the start of their evaluation journey and give more advanced support for those who need it.
From our own learning and from feedback from the third sector and funders, we have identified new areas of work that would benefit third sector and funders.
The Plan sets out eight learning priorities for the next four years. These are
- What “advanced” support looks like for the sector by offering and testing different models and creating a pathway for organisations so they can identify what “advanced” means for them.
- How to embed evaluation in organisations and what the barriers are.
- How to help organisations determine if their evidence is good enough evidence – what evaluation quality looks like.
- How to do peer learning well and the role peer learning plays in supporting evaluation in the sector
- How to work with funders and funded together to share learning with each other and enable funders to use evidence better
- How to create and support situations for people to be more honest about what doesn’t work.
- The barriers to involving service users in evaluation and how to overcome them
- The role of trustees and (other volunteers) in evaluation including in ESS.
A key part of our plan is to continue to deliver evaluation support accounts with funders, providing free support to the third sector and brokering good relationships between funders and funded.
We will also look for opportunities to influence the system in which third sector organisations work by collaborating with improvement agencies and third sector intermediaries to share learning from, and about evaluation. If you are interested in collaborating with us please email our director, Steven Marwick.
