This group seeks to examine questions like:
- How do we use research to scope and develop our programmes? Are we confident that we use it well? What data sources do we use? Are they the ‘right’ ones? Do we use research during the programme or just to set the boundaries?
- Why are so many evaluations disappointing? Do we commission research well? Do we know what we want to know?
- How do we use the knowledge generated by our grant holders? Do our grant management documents tell us anything useful? Can we learn from all our grants or just a few? Do we know what we want to know from our grant holders?
- How can we use knowledge to influence? Are the evaluations generated by us or our grant holders of good enough quality to influence?
This group is chaired by Andrew Cooper, of The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund
Meeting dates 2010
All meetings are 10 am - 12 noon at London Funders
Tuesday
, 8 June
Monday, 27 September
Tuesday, 14 December
Anyone from London Funders' members and associates is welcome to attend. Meetings always include time for sharing of members' news and ideas as well as planned agenda topics. To sign up for regular updates and to receive detailed reports of meetings, contact Yvonne
Next Meeting - 27 September 2010
10 am - 12 noon at London Funders
Recent meeting highlights
March 2010
Duncan Jones, Football Foundation, shared information on the development so far of a Programme Management/ Monitoring and Evaluation Tool and invited the group's constructive criticism and interest in sharing it. The Foundation is aiming to develop a tool to understand progress in its own strategic objectives and those of its funding partners, and to help grant recipients manage their projects and delivery of outputs and outcomes. Ruth Child, Greater London Authority, talked about the GLA's progress with Project Oracle.
December 2009
The group has been reviewing its aims and this meeting analysed the results of its own survey of group members and did some strategising about plans for the next year.
The group also heard a presentation from Craig Tomlinson of BBC Children in Need on thematic reviews.
September 2009
The group has a new Chair, Andrew Cooper, Programme and Policy Officer of The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Members will soon be sent a short survey to help them take stock of their activities so far and plans for the next few meetings.
This particular meeting was focused around some work being done by Jean Ellis of Charities Evaluation Services. CES published the booklet What Difference Does Your Money Make? in 2001, and Jean is revising and updating it. The original publication was based on research carried out for the National Audit Office, and was designed to demonstrate good practice in monitoring and evaluation of funding. CES now want to make sure it is relevant to a broad spectrum of funders, including foundations, local authorities, private organisations and central government departments, and to commissioning as well as grantmaking programmes.
The group spent some time discussing suggested new principles and some new sections – “intelligent funding” and learning through the funding relationship. They worked in small groups and in plenary and gave Jean lots of feedback about what would be useful for them and the kind of experience they could contribute. Jean was delighted with the richness of discussion and the experience shared by the group and she will be inviting group members to contribute case studies for the new publication.
Group members will soon be sent detailed notes of the discussion: other funders interested to look at these should email Yvonne.
June 2009
The last meeting had looked at two pieces of research from New Philanthropy Capital – Camilla Nevill talked about assessing children’s well-being and how far charities’ activities had contributed to improved well-being.
Gustaf Lofgren presented results of research in some depth at how candidly funders and funded organisations communicated with each other and how their relationships over monitoring and evaluation could be made more positive.
March 09
Led by Andrew Cooper of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, the group discussed monitoring and evaluation and how these can be proportionate to the size of grants and contracts. Mia Spreadbury of the Office of the Third Sector came to talk about the principles of good practice in monitoring and evaluation that OTS has developed with a view to achieving endorsement by all government departments.
December 08
Following London Funders' October Accountability and Learning Briefing delivered by Jean Ellis, Charities Evaluation Services and Jenny Field, The City Bridge Trust. The meeting looked at reports on funders’ practice in monitoring and evaluating funded groups with contributions from Jean and from Lucy Heady on New Philanthropy Capital’s Turning the Tables research report. Discussions from the group were used to collate best practice monitoring and evaluation guidelines for funders in 2009.
September 08
Alison Pollard, Big Lottery Fund asked other funders for experience and guidance on scoping research on the outcomes of funding. Additionally Kate Hinds, King’s Fund summarised a paper presented at the Dilemmas International Research Conference on "From performance monitoring to learning management - the identity struggles of a health care funder". An abstract of this paper is available on the conference website. Download a copy of Kate's presentation.
Past meeting topics have included:
- a look at The City Bridge Trust’s new publication “The Knowledge” which synthesises experience from specific grantmaking programmes,
- the Diana Memorial Fund’s approach to ensuring effectiveness in achieving impact from its grantmaking; and the recent overview of outcomes and learning from the whole 12 years of Lottery grantmaking.
- and a report from Jean Ellis of Charities Evaluation Services on her progress in reviewing monitoring and evaluation practice among funders.
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