Writing Hints:

 

It's important to describe in your proposal exactly how you will decide whether or not your project has been successful, achieved its objectives, etc. The Evaluation Plan will tell the prospective funding agency how you will be going about showing them at the end of the project that their investment in you was a good one.

If you plan to use a survey or questionnaire to help in evaluating the success of your project you may want to include in the Appendices a draft of what you are considering for the questionnaire/survey.

Your evaluation plan does not have to be elaborate but it is important to indicate to the prospective funding agency that you have not forgotten this important step.

Try to include both a concern for formative evaluation/process evaluation (ways to gain feedback on the project while it is being conducted) and summative evaluation/product evaluation (ways to show that the project fulfilled that which was originally proposed). Another way of conceptualizing this is that formative evaluation/process evaluation is concerned with the activities of the project. On the other hand, summative evaluation/product evaluation is concerned with the stated objectives of the project.

It is easy to create a summative evaluation/product evaluation plan if you have done a good job of clearly stating your project objectives or expected outcomes.

Make direct reference to your objectives in your evaluation plan. This creates a strong sense of integration/consistency within your proposal. The reader of your proposal will now be hearing the same message repeated in different sections of your proposal.

Try creating two separate evaluation plans - one for formative evaluation and the other for summative evaluation.

A good evaluation plan should include some sense of concern for what goes on following the conclusion of the funding period. How will the initiatives that have been started under the project be sustained? Have new things occurred that will be continued in the future? How will other cooperating agencies assist in continuing the project after the conclusion of the funding period? These and other areas should be included in a viable evaluation plan.

 

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