The Monitoring, Evaluation & Impact Assessment Guide

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Impact Assessment Guide both complements and supplements The Grantmaking Guide but can also be used as a standalone aid. It contains a far more thorough and detailed focus on how to monitor, evaluate and assess the impact (both positive and negative) that any given social investment and development programme may have.

Monitoring, evaluation, assessment and learning (MEAL) are imperative parts of the social investment and development process, as without them, we cannot gain a holistic overview of how change occurs in a social context through our interventions, and we cannot assess what we are doing right and/or wrong.

It is a fact that we can only improve the performance of current and future strategies and programmes if we know how to collect and analyse data and stakeholder feedback correctly. We also need to know what data is relevant and how to collect, collate and report back in a cost-effective manner. We need to be able to show development partners, government, investors and community stakeholders that we are using resources effectively. And if we are not, we need to be held accountable – and use the insights we gain through our assessment process to improve our work.

This guide has been designed to show one exactly how to best do this. Organisations that measure and assess are better able to adapt programmes to changing circumstances, and to do so faster and more effectively. Such organisations also tend to make better resource allocation decisions. As with The Grantmaking Guide, this book contains a series of tools and templates that can be used to ensure due process and best practices throughout the management and measurement process.

The guide takes one through the following steps:

• An overview of why impact measurement is a crucial component of any social investment and development initiative.
• The basics and fundamentals of measurement schematics, including theories of change and logic model frameworks.
• How to best gather, manage and collate data and information for your specific programme.
• How to measure impact and return on investment.
• How to set up performance management and measurement systems (including tools, lists and templates to guide one through the entire process).
• How to develop monitoring, evaluation and impact reports.