Planning for Effective Evaluation

Currently most public engagement is done because morally it’s the “right thing to do.” If you are affecting people’s lives, you should ask them about it. But can we do more? Can we demonstrate the value and impact of public engagement – the difference  that it can make?

This is one of the biggest challenges we face in the field of public engagement. There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence that points to the efficacy of our work, but concrete, measureable data that demonstrates impact is scarce. Planning and building frameworks for evaluation is essential to the long-term success of public engagement in order to collect the comparable evidence we need to demonstrate the value of public engagement to participants, communities and funders.