We offer a broad range of training workshops for organisations and practitioners, from our ‘Let’s Evaluate!’ programme, which teaches the building blocks of evaluation, to topic-specific workshops such as ‘Evaluating Prevention’ and ‘Evaluating Policy Influence’. See below for an overview of the workshops we offer.
As well as running as open workshops throughout the year, we offer commissioned workshops which can be delivered to a group of staff within a single organisation, either in-person or online. Intermediaries, funders and local authorities can also commission us to run workshops for their members or funded organisations. Commissioning us to deliver our training workshops is a good option if you have between 8 and 16 staff who would benefit from being trained together. You bring your organisation/sector expertise; we bring our self-evaluation expertise and help you apply it to your situation. Often this results in evaluation being better embedded within your day-to-day practice and within the culture of your team or organisation. To commission a workshop please get in touch with us via the enquiry form at the bottom of this page.
Training workshops we offer:
Let’s Evaluate! programme
“Let’s Evaluate!” is a training programme designed to help third sector organisations demonstrate the difference they make.
The programme is made up of 3 workshops that take participants through each stage of the evaluation pathway, from setting outcomes and indicators through to choosing or designing suitable evaluation methods, analysing and making sense of the evidence collected, and reporting on impact.
The programme involves a combination of: trainer input to explain evaluation simply; exercises to help participants understand evaluation; and time for participants to apply the learning to their own work.
Workshop 1 – Getting Started: Outcomes and Indicators
Open workshop £138 per person | Commissioned workshop £960 (up to 16 people)
In this workshop you will learn what outcomes and indicators are and how they can help explain the difference your work makes. You will learn how to set project-level outcomes that are relevant to your service users, and how to identify indicators to help you measure those outcomes.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Understand the importance of outcomes and indicators ✓ |
| Write clear outcomes for your project / organisation ✓ |
| Set indicators to help measure whether you are achieving your outcome ✓ |
Workshop 2 – Make to Measure: Evaluation Methods and Plans
Open workshop £138 per person | Commissioned workshop £960 (up to 16 people)
In this workshop you will explore the questions and processes involved in choosing fit-for-purpose evaluation methods; those that will help you measure your outcome indicators in a way that suits your project and its service users. You will also consider how to keep evaluation proportionate to your work and resources.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Understand the steps and principles to follow when choosing or developing evaluation methods ✓ |
| Use different methods and tools to collect information about your outcomes ✓ |
| Put in place a monitoring and evaluation plan for your project/organisation ✓ |
Workshop 3 – Telling my Story: Analysing and Reporting on Outcomes
Open workshop £138 per person | Commissioned workshop £960 (up to 16 people)
This workshop investigates how to pull evidence together and make sense of it, even though it might be coming from different places and consist of different types of data. Using evaluation for learning is just as important as using it to provide outcome evidence for your funders and this workshop examines how you can achieve both and more.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Analyse information collected to evidence the achievement of your project outcomes ✓ |
| Report on the achievement of project outcomes to funders and stakeholders ✓ |
| Learn from the analysis to improve project delivery ✓ |
All 3 Let’s Evaluate! workshops when booked together: Open £378 per person | Commissioned £2,880 (up to 16 people)
Let’s Evaluate! Lite
Open workshop £138 per person | Commissioned workshop £1,440 (up to 16 people)
Are you new to self-evaluation and looking for help to get started with simple evaluation systems? Or maybe you’re looking for a refresher of our Let’s Evaluate! programme?
If so, “Let’s Evaluate! Lite” covers much of the same content themes as our core Let’s Evaluate! Programme, but in less depth. It is designed to help participants to get started with simple evaluation systems.
This is one workshop that will be delivered over 2 days.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Set and measure project outcomes ✓ |
| Review and improve your project’s evaluation plan ✓ |
| Analyse information collected to evidence the difference your project is making ✓ |
| Report on the impact of, and learning from your project ✓ |
Evaluating Policy Influence
Open workshop £99 per person | Commissioned workshop £720 (up to 16 people)
Policy influencing is challenging – working out if you are making a difference is even harder! Policy making itself is complex and work to influence policy is not linear and takes time. Even if the change you want actually happens it’s unlikely you can say that was wholly thanks to you!
So, can you actually evaluate policy influence – and if so, how? This workshop will provide practical tips and tools to help you navigate the challenge. See our resource on evaluating policy influence, Charting the Waters, for more information.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Set realistic outcomes for policy influencing activities ✓ |
| Identify methods to collect evidence about those outcomes ✓ |
| Use evidence to report on policy influencing activities ✓ |
Evaluating Prevention
Open workshop £99 per person | Commissioned workshop £720 (up to 16 people)
Prevention work is challenging and complex – evaluating the difference this work makes can be especially difficult. There are many questions to consider: what is prevention, exactly? How do you evaluate something that hasn’t happened? How do you know which intervention made the difference in the long term? This workshop will provide practical tips and tools on how to tackle the challenge. See our Evaluating Prevention resource for more information.
At this workshop you will learn to:
| Clarify what you’re preventing and for whom ✓ |
| Identify protective factors to generate positive outcomes ✓ |
| Use the above to create a theory of change ✓ |
| Use evidence to report on prevention activities ✓ |
Involving service users in evaluation (beyond seeking feedback)
Open workshop £99 per person | Commissioned workshop £720 (up to 16 people)
Many organisations are experienced at involving their service users in different aspects of their work (e.g. governance or project planning). However, not all organisations have experience of involving people in evaluation, beyond seeking their feedback on the services they’ve received. There can be real value in doing so, both for your organisation and its service users.
At this workshop you will learn:
| Why you might want to involve service users in evaluation (beyond seeking their feedback) ✓ |
| What the barriers might be ✓ |
| How you could involve people more ✓ |
Embedding Evaluation
Open workshop £72 per person | Commissioned workshop £540 (up to 16 people)
This workshop is all about embedding evaluation practice within your organisational culture, making evaluation part of the day-to-day rather than an added extra. Building evaluation into your everyday work means evidence of your impact is available whenever you need it.
At this workshop you will learn:
| Why embedding evaluation is important ✓ |
| To what extent evaluation is already embedded in your organisation’s culture ✓ |
| How to more successfully embed evaluation ✓ |
Thrive training
Open workshop £400 per person (VAT does not apply)
Thrive Training is a certified course designed to help practitioners understand more about how to use physical activity or sport to achieve a range of outcomes. The course involves 3 days’ worth of training over 3 months, with some additional work-based learning, and is particularly suited to those working full time in this field.
The Thrive Learning Programme was developed, and is jointly delivered, by Evaluation Support Scotland and Actify.
At this workshop you will learn:
| How to define the difference you make ✓ |
| What works ✓ |
| How to use this learning to improve ✓ |
| How to make an even bigger difference ✓ |
Funder workshop: Getting the best from your grantholders
Open workshop £99 per person | Commissioned workshop £720 (up to 16 people)
‘Getting the best from your grantholders’ is a workshop for those who work for funders such as trusts and foundations, local authorities, Government and public bodies. This workshop is particularly useful for grant officers who want to improve their understanding of self-evaluation and make the most of their relationships with the third sector organisations they fund. The aim of this workshops is to improve your understanding of self-evaluation and help you make the most of your relationships with the organisations you fund.
At this workshop you will learn:
| What good self-evaluation practice for third sector organisations is ✓ |
| What effective funder-funded relationships look like ✓ |
| Assess and give feedback on reports to funded organisations ✓ |