Community Engagement Evaluation
Effective evaluation of community engagement projects, programs and policies benefits the government in several ways:
- successes in community engagement can be identified, shared and celebrated
- experiences and learnings can be shared, and this helps to develop community engagement networks
- evaluation highlights the benefits of government's community engagement activities
- future projects and programs can be improved
- a knowledge base showing what works (and doesn't work) can be used to design community engagement projects and programs.
These benefits are broadly grouped into three key roles for community engagement evaluation in government:
- as part of performance monitoring and reporting for public sector accountability at the project, departmental and whole of government level
- as part of project and program management and development and ongoing project and program improvement
- for developing a shared evidence and knowledge base for good community engagement practice.
These roles are not mutually exclusive; rather evaluation, particularly at the community engagement project and program level, should recognise and provide for all three functions. However, the scale and scope of evaluation should reflect:
- the purpose for which the evaluation will be used and the intended audience of the evaluation
- the scale and significance of the activity or reporting level.
To enhance the quality of evaluations of community engagement practice across government, Community Engagement & Development Policy has developed an Evaluation Strategy.
This Strategy proposes an approach to community engagement evaluation. It outlines a process to build public sector capability to undertake consistent and useful evaluation of community engagement practice.
The Evaluation Strategy supports the Research Evaluation Agenda and the Community Engagement Improvement Strategy by:
- establishing a community engagement research and evaluation network across government and the tertiary sector
- convening an intragovernmental working group to look at developing a set of indicators for measuring community
- engagement performance across government
- developing a project-level community engagement evaluation guidebook
- developing training materials and a training program to support the evaluation guidebook.
Access the Community Engagement Evaluation Strategy.
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