Supporting you to support others

At ESS we know we can’t reach everyone in the third sector ourselves. We want to support those who can reach some of the organisations we can’t, in order to help more third sector organisations to get to grips with evaluation. This section of our website provides advice and resources that intermediaries can use to support others with evaluation.

By “intermediaries”, we mean:

Local intermediaries (TSIs)

National intermediaries (SCVO, Voluntary Health Scotland, etc)

Any other body that supports other organisations/has a role to play in building the capacity of other organisations

(Please note: this section of our website is not about supporting intermediaries with their own evaluation. If you require evaluation support for yourself, please see our Support to third sector organisations page, or take a look at our resources on intermediaries’ impact.)

Many of you have told us that simply making the case for evaluation and why it’s important is something you often have to do with the organisations you support (before actually supporting them with it). Sharing the resource below with organisations should help you to make the case for evaluation and encourage them to see its many benefits.

Why evaluation matters

This resource was created by ESS to make the case for evaluation and why it’s important.

Below you’ll find some resources to help you support others at various stages of the evaluation pathway:

Setting outcomes and identifying indicators

Need, activities and outcomes

This tool can be used when helping another organisation define its need, activities and outcomes.
Outcomes and key indicators

This tool can be used to help you support an organisation to identify key indicators for its project outcomes.
ESS Support Guide 1a Setting outcomes

This guide helps organisations work out what their outcomes are and how to write them.
ESS Support Guide 1b Working out what to measure (Setting indicators for your outcomes)

This guide explains ways to develop and use indicators to help measure outcomes.

Choosing evaluation methods, writing evaluation plans, storage of data

ESS Evaluation Tool: Evaluation planning template

This template is a simple tool to help organisations plan their monitoring and evaluation,
ESS Support Guide 2a Designing evidence collection methods

This guide covers things organisations should think about when designing a suitable evaluation method for the evidence they want to collect.
ESS Support Guide 2b Storing Evidence

This guide looks at how organisations can store the information they need to use in evaluation.

Analysing evidence, reporting, reflecting on learning

ESS Support Guide 3a – Analysing information for evaluation

This guide covers how organisations can analyse and make sense of the information they have gathered through evaluation so they can write reports.
ESS Support Guide 3b: Report writing

This guide helps organisations think about how to turn their evaluation information in to a report for funders and others.
ESS Support Guide 3c – Case studies

This guide looks at how organisations can use case studies to illustrate the impact of their work. Case studies not only help to bring reports to life, but they can be used in a variety of other ways depending on the audience and purpose.
ESS Support Guide 4b Reflective practice

In this support guide there are suggestions of tools to prompt reflective practice.
ESS Evaluation Tool: Reporting Template

This template sets out what most funders are looking for in reports. It is taken from Harmonising Reporting – a document produced by ESS and Scotland Funders’ Forum.
Building mutually beneficial relationships – Top tips for Funded Organisations

Top tips for funded organisations about how to build mutually beneficial relationship with their funders.