Guidelines - Responsible Exchange and Volunteering 2018

Monitoring and Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation is an important practice and should be instituted as part of the organisational culture in all youth exchange/volunteer service programs. It can focus on one aspect of volunteer/exchange participant involvement, or the overall program/organisation. More importantly, it should not be just a paper exercise, but rather a process of continuous learning. The results of your monitoring and evaluation pr ocess should tell you where you are going wrong (as well as what’s working well), and guide you on the steps you can take to improve things. Regular monitoring, evaluating and reflecting allows organisations to continuously grow and adapt to ever changing environments.

Why monitor and evaluate a volunteer/exchange program? • To measure the quality of the participants’ experience within your organisation • To identify the impact that participants have on your organisation, both in terms of their contribution and their economic value • To identify areas in your volunteer/exchange program that may need improvement • Funders may require you to monitor and evaluate your volunteer/exchange program • To measure the evidence of volunteering in general

What is monitoring? Monitoring is the process of collecting information on the work that takes place within your organisation, so that your processes and procedures can be reviewed and updated as necessary. Information for monitoring can be collected daily, monthly or quarterly . What is evaluation? Evaluation involves Analysing the information you have collected to answer questions about how well the volunteer/exchange program is doing, and to identify any gaps and improvements you can make. This can be done on a six monthly or annual basis . Evaluation literature often refers to ‘ inputs ’, ‘ outputs ’ and ‘ outcomes ’. Inputs are the time, money, and resources that enable you to operate your volunteer/exchange program. Outputs are quantitative measures such as facts, figures an d statistics. These are known as ‘hard’ data. Outcomes are the changes that the volunteer/exchange program has made to the organisation and its members, and includes qualitative impacts. This is known as ‘soft’ data, and will probably play a bigger role in your evaluation process than ‘hard’ data, although facts and figures are important too. Outputs and outcomes are measured by performance indicators, which help you assess how well your volunteering/exchange program is doing.

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