Evaluation in Small Development Non-Profits by Leanne M. Kelly

Author:Leanne M. Kelly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030589790
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Aligning Evaluation Practice with Standards

This chapter used the community development and evaluation standards from the conceptual framework presented in Chapter 3 to examine how, and by whom, evaluation is conducted in small development non-profits; and to explore the enablers and barriers to these processes. The third element of the framework, the utilisation-focused protocol, comes into play in the next chapter on evaluation use. Examining the act of doing evaluation contributes to the investigation of evaluations’ worthiness in the small development non-profit context by providing a foundation with which to analyse the utility and utilisation of approaches in Chapter 6. This draws on the assumptions outlined in Chapter 1: that these non-profits aspire to fulfil community development aspirations, expect to conduct rigorous evaluations, and that those evaluations must be utilised to have a ‘point’.

The first community development standard expects that community development values will be embedded into every aspect of practice while the final standard expects evaluation programs and projects to be conducted using participatory methods (Ross et al., 2018). Notwithstanding two outliers where external evaluators sought to upskill staff, the case study non-profits’ experiences of formalised evaluation (conceived as interval-based processes culminating in a report and led either externally or internally—therefore, not including monitoring or developmental-type activities) have failed to uphold these standards. The inclusion of formal aspects of internal evaluation in this general failure was initially surprising to me. However, internal evaluators in this research, like their external colleagues, tended to complete evaluations without significant engagement or participation from other staff or community recipients, failing the evaluation standard of propriety and the second community development standard on engaging participants. The external and internal evaluations were developed, investigated, analysed, and written by the evaluator, actions in contempt of community development praxis, specifically of notions around non-directive leadership, community-driven processes, and active participation. Drawing back to community development theory whereby people need to drive their own development for interventions to be useful, relevant, and sustainable, this suggests these formalised evaluations also fail the first evaluation standard of utility. While internal evaluations may pass the evaluation standard of feasibility, external evaluations are less cost-effective. Explorations of evaluation utilisation in the next chapter will determine whether the extent of their use warrants their expense for small non-profits. Lastly, practitioners in this current chapter voice their belief that the formalised evaluations may be inaccurate, particularly due to low levels of rapport and truncated data collection, a finding that could put these evaluations in breach of the evaluation standard of accuracy.

Each of these failings links with the barriers and enablers identified as affecting the conduct of evaluation. Practitioners specifically highlight resources, relationships, culture, and complexity as key factors that require consideration. The golden thread linking these factors is time, suggesting that time is the most important factor influencing evaluation’s ability to meet community development and evaluation standards. Specifically, time to build relationships, engage, and encourage participation, and time to understand complexity and culture to enable context-sensitive practice. As time dedicated to evaluation is limited, this

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.