Community Development Evaluation Storymap and Legend

Community based organizations, funders, and intermediary organizations working in the community development field have a shared interest in building stronger organizations and stronger communities. Through evaluation these organizations can learn how their programs and activities contribute to the achievement of these goals, and how to improve their effectiveness and the well-being of their communities. Yet, evaluation is rarely seen as part of a non-judgemental organizational learning process. Instead, the term "evaluation" has often generated anxiety and confusion. The Community Development Storymap project is a response to those concerns.Illustrations found in this document were produced by Grove Consultants

Community Economic Development Initiative (CEDI) Programme Evaluation

Shotton Colliery Community Economic Development Initiative (CEDI) began in 2007. It is one of three CEDI areas funded through the Single Programme. CEDI builds on a previous County Durham-wide programme, Settlement Renewal Initiatives (SRIs), which ended in 2006. Shotton Colliery CEDI receives funding from One North East, the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the Shotton Investment Pot. The aim of CEDI is to improve the local economy in Shotton Colliery by designing projects to support local people and businesses. The emphasis is on removing barriers to employment, supporting skills and training, and stimulating business growth. CEDI’s outcomes are: 1. New economic activity contributing to diversification in the local economy; 2. Enhance the contribution made by the settlement to the local economy; 3. Reduced unemployment and worklessness; 4. Increased skill levels and educational attainment; 5. Improved access to employment through addressing multiple barriers such as poor health, childcare responsibilities and transport; 6. Increased economic opportunities through enhancing the built and natural environment. CEDI outcomes are organised into four themes: community enterprise; reducing worklessness; education, training and skills, and business support and stimulating entrepreneurship. Projects to achieve the outcomes include the development of community enterprises such as a community café, increasing the range of leisure, welfare and learning opportunities offered by the community centre, improved broadband access for the area, and initiatives to support unemployed people and encourage business growth. Shotton Partnership 2000 Ltd oversees the CEDI along with partner agencies including Shotton Parish Council and Easington District Council. It commissioned this independent evaluation in November 2007. The evaluation had the following objectives: to consider the effectiveness of the delivery of Shotton CEDI against the outputs and outcomes included in the project’s approval; to examine the particular circumstances that exist in Shotton and which may have impacted on the delivery of CEDI; and to recommend potential activities and outcomes that would be of benefit to the community of Shotton and match the aspirations of those supporting the initiative in its continuation

Learning social metrics from international development

The goal of community development should be to improve the lives of as many disadvantaged people as possible with a minimum amount of resources. The field can achieve this goal by identifying those community development projects that are both efficient and have significant social impacts, and then scaling up. However, without effective evaluations, it is impossible to gauge progress. Effective evaluations include randomized experiments and well-designed observational studies, both of which can measure the impact to society. This article analyzes the best evaluation methods in international development, including examples of evaluation toolkits, with the aim of helping community development practitioners apply the methods to projects in the United States. The article also includes steps and recommendations to increase the quantity and quality of evaluations for community development projects.Community development

Evaluation of Sheffield City Council's Community Justice Panels Project

This report is the output of an evaluation commissioned by Sheffield City Council and undertaken by the Hallam Centre for Community Justice at Sheffield Hallam University. The evaluation was undertaken during October and November 2009 with the objectives of assessing the effectiveness of the Community Justice Panels project so far and providing recommendations for future development. The evaluation used an action research methodology and included documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews with strategic partners and stakeholders, wrongdoers and harmed persons, facilitator focus group and observation of the Panels

The latest frontiers for financial inclusion: Using mobile phones to reach the unbanked

The goal of community development should be to improve the lives of as many disadvantaged people as possible with a minimum amount of resources. The field can achieve this goal by identifying those community development projects that are both efficient and have significant social impacts, and then scaling up. However, without effective evaluations, it is impossible to gauge progress. Effective evaluations include randomized experiments and well-designed observational studies, both of which can measure the impact to society. This article analyzes the best evaluation methods in international development, including examples of evaluation toolkits, with the aim of helping community development practitioners apply the methods to projects in the United States. The article also includes steps and recommendations to increase the quantity and quality of evaluations for community development projects.Unbanked

Cooperative Credit: How Community Development Credit Unions are Meeting the Need for Affordable, Short Term Credit

This report summarizes an 18-month evaluation of the affordable payday loan alternative products offered by six community development credit unions. In addition to describing loan activity, the report identifies the financial and operational factors that account for the program's success

Strategic evaluation study on child-centred community development - Synthesis report

This strategic formative evaluation was carried out by Wageningen International Capacity Development & Institutional Change (CD&IC) programme from May to September 2009. The evaluation aims to obtain insight into the understanding of CCCD within Plan, and to learn more about the factors that favour or obstruct the implementation of Child Centred Community Development (CCCD) in practice. Suggestions on improving CCCD as an approach to development are provided, as well as an analysis of capacity development needs for CCCD implementation. This evaluation report is a product of Phase I of the complete anticipated evaluation trajectory. Phase II will most likely include an international workshop around the findings of Phase I. The findings of Phase I will contribute to the track record for the MFS II application to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs which Plan Netherlands is currently preparing. The study comprised a desk research stage, which reviewed relevant Plan documentation as well as consultations with key stakeholders within Plan worldwide. During this stage face to face interviews were conducted in Plan IH office in Woking, and at NLNO in Amsterdam. Other interviews with stakeholders in ROs and NOs were done using Skype. Furthermore two field studies were conducted in Kenya and Bangladesh. Given the fact that the topic of the study is broad, it is limited to analysis of the wider issues pertaining to CCCD rather than in-depth detailed analysis of these issues

Older patients' prescriptions screening in the community pharmacy: development of the Ghent Older People's Prescriptions community Pharmacy Screening (GheOP3S) tool

Background: Ageing of the population often leads to polypharmacy. Consequently, potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) becomes more frequent. Systematic screening for PIP in older patients in primary care could yield a large improvement in health outcomes, possibly an important task for community pharmacists. In this article, we develop an explicit screening tool to detect relevant PIP that can be used in the typical community pharmacy practice, adapted to the European market. Methods: Eleven panellists participated in a two-round RAND/UCLA (Research and Development/University of California, Los Angeles) process, including a round zero meeting, a literature review, a first written evaluation round, a second face-to-face evaluation round and, finally, a selection of those items that are applicable in the contemporary community pharmacy. Results: Eighteen published lists of PIP for older patients were retrieved from the literature, mentioning 398 different items. After the two-round RAND/UCLA process, 99 clinically relevant items were considered suitable to screen for in a community pharmacy practice. A panel of seven community pharmacists selected 83 items, feasible in the contemporary community pharmacy practice, defining the final GheOP3S tool. Conclusion: A novel explicit screening tool (GheOP3S) was developed to be used for PIP screening in the typical community pharmacy practice

"Touch me": workshop on tactile user experience evaluation methods

In this workshop we plan to explore the possibilities and challenges of physical objects and materials for evaluating the User Experience (UX) of interactive systems. These objects should face shortfalls of current UX evaluation methods and allow for a qualitative (or even quantitative), playful and holistic evaluation of UX -- without interfering with the users' personal experiences during interaction. This provides a tactile enhancement to a solely visual stimulation as used in classical evaluation methods. The workshop serves as a basis for networking and community building with interested HCI researchers, designers and practitioners and should encourage further development of the field of tactile UX evaluation

Emerging Opportunities: Monitoring and Evaluation in a Tech-Enabled World

Various trends are impacting on the field of monitoring and evaluation in the area of international development. Resources have become ever more scarce while expectations for what development assistance should achieve are growing. The search for more efficient systems to measure impact is on. Country governments are also working to improve their own capacities for evaluation, and demand is rising from national and community-based organizations for meaningful participation in the evaluation process as well as for greater voice and more accountability from both aid and development agencies and government.These factors, in addition to greater competition for limited resources in the area of international development, are pushing donors, program participants and evaluators themselves to seek more rigorous – and at the same time flexible – systems to monitor and evaluate development and humanitarian interventions.However, many current approaches to M&E are unable to address the changing structure of development assistance and the increasingly complex environment in which it operates. Operational challenges (for example, limited time, insufficient resources and poor data quality) as well as methodological challenges that impact on the quality and timeliness of evaluation exercises have yet to be fully overcome