The impact of Advocacy
Can your organisation prove its case against other worthy causes?
Advocacy has the potential to make a considerable difference in individuals' lives but finding ways to evaluate and record those differences is not so easy.
Carrying out a good evaluation of an independent advocacy organisation is a difficult business.
As an example let us take two independent professional advocacy organisations of an equivalent size. The first works directly with 50 people in a year and the second only 20. They both use evaluation forms to take feedback from those who are supported. The first has no problem demonstrating that almost everyone has provided a glowing report. The second can only show a few positive comments, and clearly has received some criticism from those it has supported.
Which is the better organisation?
Which offers best value for money?
Which does the greatest 'good'?
On the face of it the evaluation would lead us to conclude that the organisation that reaches more people and gets better comments must be doing a better job.
But what if the reason for the difference is that the second organisation goes out of its way to support people in much more difficult circumstances?
What if it takes three times as long to do a good job supporting these people?
What if more critical evaluations are received because they are helping people with more difficult issues, and therefore achieving less dramatic results?
What if they are more open in their approach and people feel free to speak honestly?
What if they are so empowering that people's expectations for their lives have risen - so they expect much more?
What if by working like this, they are also affecting the way people not connected to the organisation are treated?
If these things were true we would need to make a judgement about what we felt was best. We couldn't state categorically that one organisation or the other was better.
In reality any organisation will only have limited evidence available that offers the opportunity to measure success and failure in any definitive way.
We need to ensure that there is proper evaluation of advocacy practice and application to show funders the impact it has for the beneficiaries.
Evaluation Toolkit
ARX has produced a toolkit for advocacy organisations to use and adapt to suit their own needs. It gives guidance on the things we can look for to identify the impact that advocacy has and how it can improve the quality of people's lives.
Click here to access the toolkit. If you want any further information on how to use it or you have any queries then please email janet.badger@advocacyresource.org.uk