Helping local charities uncover their impact

In July, Yma ran a practical monitoring and evaluation workshop for 6 local charities, led by Dr Julia Pirson our Evaluation Lead and commissioned by CAVO. The session was designed to help organisations think clearly about what they collect, why they collect it, and how they can use evidence to show the value of their work.

The workshop began by exploring why monitoring and evaluation matters. For charities, evaluation is not only about meeting funder requirements. It can also support future funding, strengthen engagement with communities, raise awareness, improve services, and help organisations understand what is working and what may need to change.

Participants were encouraged to start with the data they already collect as part of everyday delivery and consider where small, realistic additions to data collection could help charities better understand and communicate their impact – after all, the right data collection method is the one people will actually use.

The session also introduced evaluation design tools, including logic models, indicators, comparators, data collection timing, and the importance of understanding contextual factors. The participants put this all into action by creating their own impact models and understanding how their services create opportunities for evaluation without significant change in their delivery models.

By the end of the session, participants had considered what matters most to their funders, communities and service users, and identified the next practical steps for strengthening monitoring and evaluation within their own organisations.

At Yma, we believe effective evaluation should be built into services from the start, not bolted on at the end when opportunities to collect data have passed. We offer services including support to scope evaluations, primary data collection and analysis and communications support for your results. We also offer bespoke evaluation packages, and 1:1 consultancy support.

If you feel you would benefit from a conversation with the Yma team about how we can help, get in touch at Yma@dymani.cymru.