Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения»
Позитивные изменения, Том 3 №1, 2023. Positive changes. Volume 3, Issue 1 (2023)
“Do it yourself:” How NGOs Evaluate Projects Using Their Own Resources
Alexey Kuzmin
DOI 10.55140/2782–5817–2023–3–1–34–43
Many experts believe that self-evaluation is one of the key trends in the development of evaluation in general. Self-evaluation is similar to external evaluation, but it has its peculiarities. The authors of this article discuss the importance of evaluation principles, and provide recommendations for NGO self-evaluation situations.
Alexey Kuzmin
PhD, Director General, Process Consulting Company, Council Member, International Evaluation Academy
THE STORY OF ONE PREDICTION
In 2012, American evaluator John Gargani, who later became president of the American Evaluation Association, posted 10 predictions in his blog about the future of program and project evaluation. The first point was worded as follows: “Most evaluations will be internal.” (Gargani, 2012).
What is it about?
To begin with, program (project) evaluation is “the systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs to make judgments about the program, improve program effectiveness, and/ or inform decisions about future programming.” (Patton, 2008).
Suppose an organization is implementing a project. The project can be evaluated by specialists external to the organization. This is external evaluation. Alternatively, the project can be evaluated by the specialists within the organization itself. This case is referred to as internal evaluation. Sometimes self-evaluation is singled out from internal evaluation, when the project is evaluated by the very same people who implement it.
Active development of the evaluation of socially oriented projects and programs in the United States started in the 1960s. The requirement to conduct an evaluation was part of the “top-down” approach, utilized first in the educational institutions, and then in other areas. This was an innovation at the time, and the evaluation was solely the domain of external consultants with the appropriate competencies.
It soon became clear that organizations should develop their own evaluation capabilities. The relevant practical experience was accumulated over the course of 10 to 15 years. The development of internal evaluation practices was one of the central topics at the 1982 American Evaluation Association conference (McClintock, 1983).
Arnold Love, Canada (A. J. Love, 1983), noted that internal evaluation serves two basic functions: first, it provides relevant and timely information for management decision-making; and second, the internal evaluation process in itself has a positive effect on both decision-making and the organizational performance. Love suggested that “over the next few years we can expect the internal evaluation function to continue growing and changing” (A. J. Love, 1983). By the way, this prediction was published 30 years before the one made by John Gargani.
Around the same time, Ernest House (1986) observed that the practice of public organizations in the United States was shifting from external evaluations, conducted primarily by universities and private companies, to internal evaluations conducted by specially created units. At the same time, most of the publications available at the time referred specifically to external evaluation. That is why the publication of A. J. Love’s book, “Internal Evaluation: Building Organizations from Within” (A. J. Love, 1991) became a remarkable event. The author of this book remains one of the most quoted authors to this day, when it comes to internal evaluation.
Table 1. Benefits and limitations of external and internal evaluation
20 years later, the “New Directions in Evaluation” series[28] publishes a collection of works titled “Internal Evaluation in the 21st Century.” Isn’t it somewhat old for a new direction?
In an interview with the book’s editor (Volkov, 2011), Arnold Love recalls that in the 1990s up to 60 percent of all evaluations in the United States were conducted internally. At the same time, internal evaluation was developing differently from country to country. In Canada, for example, the federal government decided back in late 1970s that evaluations of government programs should be primarily internal, while the Japan Evaluation Society reported in 2006 that 99 % of evaluations in their country were internal.
Even though internal evaluation is being actively implemented all over the world, the number of studies and publications on this topic in the second decade of the 21st century is still very limited (Volkov & Baron, 2011). However, the issues of developing internal evaluation in smaller organizations with limited resources are increasingly coming into spotlight (Baron, 2011; Rogers, McCoy, & Kelly, 2019).
Practice shows that internal evaluation can coexist happily with external evaluation, and most experts now agree that these are not mutually exclusive, but complementary approaches (see Table 1).
Now back to John Gargani’s prediction (Gargani, 2012). He suggested that internal evaluation in the U. S. would largely replace external evaluation within 10 years. Thus, most program and project evaluations in the United States would be internal by 2022. Apparently, this has not happened yet, but we can definitely state that internal evaluation is developing in both government and non-government organizations in the United States, Canada, Japan, and many other countries. Russia is no exception.
INTERNAL EVALUATION IN RUSSIA
Without going too much into historical detail, we should note that in Russia everything started with external evaluation, which was “imported” to us in the early 1990s along with the international assistance programs by numerous foreign organizations (Kuzmin et al., 2007). Gradually, local evaluators started appearing as well. At the same time, evaluation developed in two directions: the market for external evaluation services was being established alongside the development of internal evaluation function.
The Russian NGOs needed to develop their own evaluation capacity for at least two reasons: 1) donor organizations’ requirements, and 2) the need to build management control systems due to increasingly complex and expanding NGO activities (Kuzmin, 2020). However, the majority of Russian NGOs failed to pay attention to developing evaluation competencies for quite some time.
The situation has only started in recent years:
• there has been a marked increase in the demand for training for NGO managers and staff in the field of evaluation;
• NGOs have learned to collect and process data much more efficiently;
• a number of NGOs have acquired successful internal evaluation experience;
• donor organizations increasingly require NGOs to submit analytical reports;
• at the annual conferences of the Association of Specialists in Program and Policy Evaluation (ASPPE)[29], there has been a noticeable increase in the number of presentations on experiences in developing internal evaluation and its importance for high-quality organization management.
Six years ago, as I was observing these processes and comparing them to what was happening abroad, I suggested that by 2026 Russia would see “an increase in the evaluation capacity of various organizations, the development of internal evaluation and self-evaluation” (Kuzmin, 2016). Looks like this prediction is coming true. Another proof of this is the creation of the PROOCENKU Alliance[30] in 2021 and the opening of an online discussion club of the same name, focused mainly on the development of internal evaluation and self-evaluation:
“The PROOCENKU Club is an ongoing online discussion platform for anyone interested in evaluation. The Club’s slogan goes as follows: “An interesting conversation in a good company.” The Club’s mission is to support a community of practitioners dedicated to integrating evaluation into the work of socially oriented organizations. Nothing is required to participate in the meetings, other than the desire. Education, level of training in evaluation, and practical experience are not important.”[31]
PRINCIPLES OF SELF-EVALUATION OF NGO PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS
ASPPE has developed and published a number of important works on the professional development of professional evaluators. These include the Principles of Program and Policy Evaluation (ASPPE, 2017).
Professional principles are born out of practice and determine how members of the profession should behave in situations of difficult choices. Principles cannot be invented before real experience has been accumulated: it is a natural evolutionary process. When a profession reaches a certain level of maturity and a professional community (association) has been established, that community comes together to agree on the principles. Therefore, the principles of program and policy evaluation adopted by ASPPE are important not only as guidelines for action, but also as evidence of the emerging evaluation profession in Russia.
These principles are designed to take into account the fact that, generally, three parties can participate in the evaluation:
• The Customer is a representative of the organization that initiates the evaluation, orders the task to be implemented, and will be the main user of the evaluation results.
• An evaluator – a specialist hired by the Customer to perform the evaluation.
• Evaluation participants – the people who provide the information for the evaluation; these are usually employees or managers of the programs being evaluated (ASPPE, 2017).
Figure 1. Self-evaluation: three in one
ASPPE suggests that evaluation must be guided by the following principles:
1. Focus on practical use of the results.
2. Competence of the performers.
3. Appropriate methodology.
4. Transparency.
5. Safety.
6. Flexibility.
The “general case,” for which ASPPE principles were developed, is an external evaluation (see Figure 1).
A program (project) self-evaluation is the systematic collection of information about the activities of the program (project), its characteristics and outcomes, which is performed by the program (project) team to make judgments about the program (project), improve the effectiveness of the program (project), and/or inform decisions about future programming. The difference between this definition and the generic definition given at the beginning of the article is all in the italicized text: here, everything is done by the project team itself. The people implementing the project also set the evaluation task, plan the evaluation, collect the data (while also serving as important sources of information), analyze the data, formulate the evaluation results, and use them – all on their own. It turns out that in self-evaluation, the project team acts as the customer, the contractor, and the evaluation participants (see Figure 1).
Do the ASPPE evaluation principles apply in a self-evaluation situation?
We had a series of discussions on this issue as part of the 2022 PROOCENKU Club meetings[32]. They were attended by more than 40 people, mostly coming from non-profit organizations from many regions of Russia.
The outcome of these discussions can be summarized as follows:
1. The evaluation principles proposed by ASPPE are applicable to NGO self-evaluation.
2. Short definitions of these principles also apply to the self-evaluation situation.
3. However, recommendations for the use of these principles in self-evaluation practice require significant adjustment and simplification.
We have developed and discussed guidelines for a self-evaluation situation. This is how the Principles of Self-Evaluation of NGO Programs and Projects have appeared (PROOCENKU Alliance, 2023). These principles, with recommendations for their application, are presented below. I believe it can be useful to any NGO, regardless of its specialization.
Principle 1. Focus on practical use of the results.
The whole self-evaluation process should be focused on getting information that is useful to you.
Recommendations:
• You need to be as specific as possible as to why you are doing self-evaluation. Think carefully and discuss the scope of work for self-evaluation. Formulate the questions you want answered, and discuss who will use those answers and how.
• If it is not clear who and how will use the answers to any of the suggested questions, exclude these questions from the scope.
• Include only those questions where answers are not known or at least not obvious to you.
• See if there is a simpler way to answer these questions, rather than performing a self-evaluation.
• Try to keep the number of questions to a minimum. Leave only those of most importance to you.
• At the end of self-evaluation, hold a meeting to discuss the results and plan actions required to use those results (with timelines and responsibilities).
• Think about whether some of the results of your self-evaluation can be useful to someone else besides you.
Principle 2. Competence of the performers.
NGO employees who conduct self-evaluation must have the necessary and sufficient knowledge and skills to do so.
Recommendations:
• Self-evaluation is carried out according to certain rules. You don’t have to become an expert evaluator, but you do need to know the basics. To do this, you can read special literature or send some of your employees to a training.
• Keep in mind that it is always possible to consult with experts in areas where your own knowledge and skills are lacking. For example, your local university or professional evaluators association.
• Consider self-evaluation an opportunity to learn through practice. Discuss the experience and learn from it.
Principle 3. Appropriate methodology.
The choice of the general approach to self-evaluation and the methods of conducting it should be well justified, considering the limitations. Various evaluation methods must be used, following appropriate procedures and standards.
Recommendations:
• When planning self-evaluation, consider the limitations of available resources and time. Remember that you do not have all the necessary knowledge and skills for evaluation.
• It is important to have an understanding of the strengths and limitations of different approaches to project and program evaluation.
• When choosing self-evaluation methods and tools, it is better to do simple things right than to do complicated things wrong.
• If you have any doubts about the capabilities or appropriateness of a particular tool, you should consult with an expert or refrain from using that tool.
• Remember that the familiarity and prevalence of techniques do not guarantee that they will be appropriate for self-evaluation of a particular project in a given setting.
• Everyone can make mistakes, and it is important to learn from them and avoid their repeating.
Principle 4. Transparency.
Self-evaluation is a transparent process: all parties involved must be informed about the goals, methodology and intended use of its results.
Recommendations:
• Make sure that everyone involved in self-evaluation has sufficient information about the process and agrees to provide data voluntarily (respecting the principle of “informed consent”).
• Full results of the self-evaluation are only intended for you. For everyone else, they can either be partially open (at your discretion) or completely closed.
• You need to consider that you may have a bias towards your own project and be suffering from having lost the fresh perception of the project (“blurred view”): these issues should be openly discussed by the self-evaluation participants.
• Since you are performing the self-evaluation for yourself, not for someone else, you are interested in seeing your project for what it is. In this situation, embellishing simply makes no sense. Therefore, you should not view the self-evaluation situation as a potential conflict of interest or be concerned about it.
Principle 5. Safety.
Self-evaluation should be conducted with respect for the dignity of all its participants, regardless of their role, social status and individual characteristics. When conducting a self-evaluation, you should consider the possible negative effects it can have on both individuals and organizations. The risk of possible negative consequences should be minimized, and participants in the self-evaluation should be informed about them.
Recommendations:
• Discuss whether or not self-evaluation could result in harming someone. If this is a possibility, even in theory, all participants should be made aware about it.
• Discuss how you can minimize the risk of negative consequences of self-evaluation. Do your best to avoid such consequences.
• Self-evaluation should be conducted when NGO employees are in a resourceful state; that is, when they have enough emotional, physical, mental strength and energy to do so. Participating in self-evaluations is an additional burden for the employees, and this should be considered when planning their work, to avoid burnout.
• Self-evaluations are part of your organization’s activities, so they must be conducted in strict compliance with the ethical standards relevant to your NGO’s scope of work.
Principle 6. Flexibility.
It is necessary to provide for the possibility of adapting the self-evaluation methodology to each specific case, as well as to changing conditions.
Recommendations:
• There are many different approaches to evaluating projects and programs. You should choose the one that is best for your project, given the conditions. Even if something has worked well for evaluating your projects in the past, it does not necessarily mean it will work for your current project.
• In the process, be flexible and adjust the plan, methods, and tools of self-evaluation as needed to accommodate changing conditions or newly emerging factors.
• Just in case, check yourself: isn’t the decision to be “flexible” an excuse for not conducting self-evaluation in good faith, and could it lead to negative consequences?
PRINCIPLES OF SELF-EVALUATION AND CAPACITY BUILDING IN EVALUATION
Self-evaluation involves building one’s capacity for evaluation. In this regard, it may be useful for NGOs to keep in mind the following “formula” (Kuzmin, 2009):
According to this “formula,” if you know how to do an evaluation but don’t do it, the capacity is zero. Similarly, if you do an evaluation but don’t know how to do it, the result is still zero.
In other words, capacity development in evaluation involves balancing two interrelated tasks: one must both learn and apply the knowledge and skills gained in practice. The principles of self-evaluation take both factors into account.
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