Evaluation in European Foundations: Trends and Perspectives

1. Evaluation in European Foundations:Trends and Perspectives Andrew Barnett UK Branch Director Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

2. Outline • Two key trends • Our recent experience of designing an evaluation system • What is evaluation for?

3. Lifecycle of a programme

4. Trend 1: Focus on ‘effectiveness’ Traditional giving helps one person or organisation at a time by providing support for immediate needs. Strategic philanthropy focuses on systemic change and builds for the future. Centre for Effective Philanthropy

5. Foundation sector in Europe is growing dynamically • 110,000 ‘public-benefit foundations’ in the EU • 43% set up as recently as the early 1990s (many of these small and associated with ‘new wealth’) • Foundations in Europe spend between €83 billion and €150 billion annually, over twice as much as the US foundation sector • Direct full-time employment: between 750,000 to 1 million people in the EU

6. Some important players – but not really a movement • Bertelsmann Foundation (Germany) • Compagnia di San Paolo (Italy) • King Baudouin Foundation (Belgium) • Bernard van Leer Foundation (Netherlands) International network of strategy philanthropy (2001-2005) Publication: Rethinking Philanthropic Effectiveness (2005) Foundations are magpies. They rarely stick with one way of approaching evaluation. Gerry Salole, EFC

7. Trend 2: the quest to measure value Helping all organisations identify, measure and evaluate their organisational outcomes would be hugely valuable as a whole... Funders and commissioners have a vital role to play in incentivising good outcomes measurement – funders need to incorporate evaluation data into subsequent rounds of grant giving in order for organisations to see a return for their efforts, and commissioners need to put money aside in contracts specifically for the evaluation of projects. Measuring Social Value Demos 2010

8. Examples UK Players: New Economics Foundation New Philanthropy Capital NCVO Charities Evaluation Services Cabinet Office

9. Principles of SROI • Involve stakeholders • Understand what changes • Value the things that matter. • Only include what is material. • Do not over claim. • Be transparent. • Verify the result

10. Our experience: drivers and lessons • Need to maximise impact • Need to tell a compelling story to partners and collaborators and to the wider sectors • Need to extract learning from individual activities • Desire to set an example and to lead: to be at the forefront of thinking and practice

11. Key stages in the journey • Develop a strategy and operationalise the strategy • Go live as soon as possible – ‘retrofit’ existing projects and apply system to new or early stage projects • Use an external consultant to draw strands together and co-devise a system with the team – codify the process, make it explicit. • Review and iterate. And keep on doing it.

12. Our strategy • One overriding purpose which links to • 3 main strategic aims which link to • 3 objectives under each aim which reflect • Time-limited programmes and activities • 1 cross-cutting aim concerned with capacity

13. A vital planning and management tool: the evaluation cycle

14. From implicit to explicit

15. Main lessons learned • Evaluation is the means not the end. • It is part of your planning tool box. • At the most back level, an evaluation system consists of making the implicit explicit. • Everyone needs to own any evaluation system. • A good evaluation system should not constrain but should provide greater freedom. • Be realistic about measuring long term top-level impact • The system should focus on the programme level and above

16. Live design by users

17. Our emerging ‘theory of change’ • Scoping • Coalition building • Persuading • Demonstrating • Learning and improvement

18. Concluding questions • What is evaluation for? • What do you believe to be the main drivers? • What’s your journey like? • Questions for me.

19. For more information andrew.barnett@gulbenkian.org.uk www.gulbenkian.org.uk