Evaluating volunteer programs is essential to benchmarking our progress in providing the best service to our stakeholders, but it is also an area of the volunteer management cycle that we tend to skip over. Sometimes you just don?t have the time to evaluate, or you have so many balls in the air, this is one that you think can wait.
It?s also one of those areas that is not exciting or glamorous but is essential for growth. As managers of volunteers we like developing and creating opportunities, but part of the process is to evaluate how successful you have been.
So why is this month?s article on evaluation? It?s true that you usually evaluate after a program or activity, but sometimes taking stock through an evaluation can be the beginning. Evaluation in the fall is also an ideal way to engage volunteers who may have taken some time off and it allows them to re-engage themselves. It is a great way to see if volunteers are still around and ready to get busy again. Evaluation at this time of the year is also a tool to engage staff and start them thinking about volunteers and how they can enhance their program deliverables.
Why do we do evaluation?
Effective program evaluation is more than asking questions, collecting data, analyzing that data and providing results. It is a way to gather information so that you can learn and grow continuously and improve on your programs and services. The goal of evaluation is to provide useful information that will assist in decision making.
Ultimately, we need to see if we are meeting our goals. Are volunteers satisfied with their positions? Are they getting the support that they need? Are they feeling engaged? Is there any information that we can gather from volunteers’ insights to better support and retain others? Do volunteers have suggestions as to how we can better train them, stay connected or recognize them?
As with any program or product that you are putting out there to the public, you want to make sure that you are hitting the mark.
Another audience that is important in the evaluation is our staff. It is just as important to make sure that we are providing staff with the right volunteer for the right job. Are we communicating properly to staff that work with volunteers? Are they getting enough support? Where do they see volunteers getting involved? Do they have ideas of how they can partner with us?
Are we translating the needs of the staff to the needs of the volunteers? Do they have suggestions as to where we can target our recruitment or how to best recognize and support their relationships with volunteers? These are just few good questions that we should be asking on a regular basis.
A significant and often overlooked group to involve in evaluation is our partner organizations and groups, such as corporations and schools that we may engage with annually. Again, it is a great time to put your organization on their radar for another year. As previously stated in other articles, you need to keep the communication going throughout the year and simply sending out newsletters or other one-way communications is not really engaging others. This is an opportunity to create a two-way street, with your partners feeling that they are part of the process.
When you?re finished, share your results with those who participated in your evaluation. Create a summary sheet of the results and provide some feedback as to your next steps.
Now comes the hard part…putting your thoughts on paper. Here is a simple process to work through:
- Put on paper what you want to know.
- Who do you want to know it from?
- What kind of questions do you want to ask?
Structuring the evaluation
Now you need to decide how you?re going to go about it. There are many different ways to gather information and structure an evaluation of your volunteer program. Choose what will work best for you:
The Program Logic Model: logic models allow you to state your goals with both short term and long term measurement tools and resources required. You can evaluate your success and measure your outcomes.
Focus groups: these are an opportunity to have dialogue, focusing on a small group of targeted audiences that will give instantaneous feedback.
Questionnaires, surveys and checklists: this is good when you need to get information quickly and easily. I suggest a combination of open ended and check off questions, and be sure you don?t make it too long. Technology has made doing surveys very easy, and there are many websites available that can help you develop and summarize evaluation questionnaires.
Interviews: an opportunity to fully understand a subject.
Observation: can be used to gather accurate information about a program.
Case studies: can be used to fully understand a system from beginning to end. For example, understanding the experience that a volunteer has from first contact to retirement with your organization.
From the results you can celebrate successes through a variety of communication tools that your organization uses to promote, educate and market to others. Share them with senior leadership, boards of directors, staff and volunteers. Use the results to help formulate or shift your programming.
Finally, evaluation is a great method to engage others, promote your program and focus on continued growth and learning. An evaluation exercise will show its true value when you make use of the information to strengthen your program.
Lori Gotlieb is the Manager of Community Engagement for The Arthritis Society, Toronto Region and the founder of Lori Gotlieb Consulting. Lori is an internationally published author and workshop facilitator. Lori can be reached at lori.gotlieb@rogers.com.
