This user-friendly step-by-step guide will help organisations become more evaluation focussed in a structured and systematic way. This tool has been trialled with a number of service providers and takes into consideration both Māori and Pacific perspectives.
"It's for everyone who sees the need to catch up on evaluation. This is easy. I understand. I can see the relevance of the questions."
"We made the tool fit our needs. It is flexible enough to enable this."
"The question prompts are excellent. We used them. We spent more time on discussion than we expected. It was a good, healthy exploration of our strengths and areas to strengthen."
The richness of this tool comes from the meaningful discussions you and your teams will have. These discussions can then be captured in the templates, online or on paper, using simple key words or brief explanations. Cell sizes in the various tables have been kept relatively small on purpose. However, the templates for Parts 3 and 4 of the tool are available both in A4 and A3 formats.
We have also published supporting documents that explain how the tool came about:
The evaluation capacity building project: The path we took
This explains the overall process This explains the overall process - how the tools were co-created with three culturally diverse NGOs.
Successful NGO evaluation cultures – Literature scan
A review of current international and New Zealand literature on what enables NGOs to successfully build their evaluation capacity.
Full technical report
This technical report describes the origins of our work on Evaluation Capacity Building.
Making sense of evaluation: A handbook for everyone
Now in its second edition, our user-friendly, award-winning handbook is designed for those working in New Zealand's social sector, and beyond, who need to know more about how to measure and understand the effectiveness of their programmes.
The handbook's introduction covers audience and purpose, and reinforces the importance of language. The contents are presented in four modules, featuring a penguin case study to ground the theory of evaluation in real life:
Module 1: Getting ready - what is evaluation?
Module 2: Understanding your programme
Module 3: Measuring change
Module 4: Evaluation planning and management
Cutting through the jargon
All those working in the social sector tend to use common terms in specific ways – and not always the same specific way! Download our updated and extended glossary and use it to help you navigate the jargon associated with a wide range of evaluation concepts, tools and techniques. The glossary gives a brief definition and explanation for each term, and lists some alternatives or synonyms you might also come across.
Evaluation standards
New Zealand invests considerable resources in policies and programmes intended to contribute to the wellbeing of our society, communities, families and whanau and environment. There is a need to know what these investments achieve, how their results can be improved and how valuable the investment has been.
Evaluation can answer these questions. It is vital that evaluation information, findings, judgements and conclusions informing decisions and actions in the public interest are of the highest quality. Standards make a strong public statement about what is considered to be robust, ethical and trustworthy evaluation.