Funders expect performance monitoring and outcomes evaluation. Strategic Grants helps you report your outcomes to your donors and funders in a meaningful and relevant way.

Our evaluation and performance monitoring services are customised to your nonprofit to ensure:

  • you know what’s working and what’s not
  • you can tailor your programs accordingly
  • you can report outcomes and social impact to your funders with confidence

We do this through:

  • Grant-Seeking Review
  • Pre and Post Evaluation Tools
  • Program Design
  • Needs Analysis
  • Monitoring and Evaluation Framework
  • Program Logic Design Workshop
  • Program Evaluation
  • Customised External Evaluation

Grant-Seeking Review

We work with your organisation to examine past grant-seeking practices and results. 

A full analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) will be carried out through in-depth research. Data will be examined to learn who has funded what, how often, how much and trends in decreases / increases in funding. Your data will be measured against sector trends.

Questions informing the review will include: 

  • How have funding opportunities been identified?
  • Have funders been called before applications submitted?
  • Have funders been called on receipt of grant?
  • How is grants activity stored?
  • How are reporting dates stored?
  • Have all grants been reported to funders?
  • What organisational key messaging has been used in applications?
  • Total applications submitted over specified time periods
  • Success rate by number of applications and $ received
  • Funder feedback

The report will provide a summary and a clear plan for developing a sustainable, centralised and effective grant-seeking strategy. We recommend pairing this service with a Grants Program Review Workshop.

Pre-post Evaulation Tool

A pre and post survey will help you monitor if you are achieving your objectives. It will help prove capability and document learnings, outcomes and potential impact.

The tool includes two surveys with up to ten questions each, customised to an evaluation criterion:

  • The pre-questionnaire is given to participants in advance of the project or intervention, to establish baseline information.
  • A post-questionnaire is given to rate the effectiveness and benefits of the project.

A report is provided that summarises the data, to inform decisions and future investment.

Program Design

Designing a new program or service can be both challenging and rewarding.

An understanding of all resources and infrastructure required is critical. So too is an appreciation for the data collection and information you will need to demonstrate your success. The ability to clearly define the need for your program and its goals, objectives, strategies, outputs, outcomes and measures of success, is critical to securing funding.

Needs Analysis

We scan your organisation’s data to draw on the evidence of need. We then examine relevant literature to summarise and review current knowledge on the issue your project is seeking to address. An evaluative report will be provided to support your project need and design.

Monitoring and Evaluation Framework

A well thought out monitoring and evaluation framework is essential.

It will assist you to evaluate the outcomes you hope to achieve and identify targets needed to: measure success, track progress and be able to pivot when projects aren’t meeting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

We will design a realistic framework to help you monitor and measure outputs, outcomes and (potential) impact over the course of the project. Funder reporting requirements will be built in to ensure you are capturing the right data that meets and exceeds funder expectations.

A monitoring and evaluation framework will help you to:

  • Incorporate your evaluation framework at project design and planning stage
  • Clarify the goals and objectives
  • Identify variables that may influence the outcomes
  • Adhere to guidelines for ethical evaluation
  • Gather and store data responsibly and securely
  • Systematically monitor and analyse information in support of your work, and
  • Prepare reports that present the relevant data to your funders.

Program Logic Design Workshop

We will work with relevant staff in your organisation to create a program logic.

Program logics or theory of change, are essential in assisting project planning and evaluation design.

Your program logic describes the inputs required to implement the strategies that are required to deliver the outputs, outcomes and predicted impact. It also identifies any assumptions and theories that underpin the way the program is expected to function. It tells the story of how the program will work.

During a half-day workshop, we will work with key program staff and stakeholders to:

  • Identify need and aims
  • Develop an outcomes hierarchy
  • Identify deliverables
  • Review the current situation.
  • Document your program logic

Program Evaluation

A rigorous service-based program evaluation will provide independent and objective perspective on your program services.

A service-based program evaluation asks is your program effective and what needs to change. It can be used to:

  • Support applications for new or continued funding
  • Secure support from stakeholders and the community
  • Improve staff performance and management, and
  • Contribute to the broader evidence-base about what does and does not work.

And can include:

  • Design of evaluation framework
  • Online questionnaires delivered at fixed time points during project evaluation
  • Brief structured interviews
  • Analysis of relevant organisational data, and
  • Review of best practice literature.

Customised External Evaluation

There are various several types of evaluations that can be conducted including:

  • Formative Evaluation ensures a program is feasible, appropriate, and acceptable before it is fully implemented.
  • Process/Implementation Evaluation determines if program activities have been implemented as intended.
  • Outcome Evaluation measures how well the program is performing.
  • Impact Evaluation assesses the longitudinal effects of your program.