Gathering Information
After you have laid out your objectives and indicators and identified your stakeholders, the next step is to figure out how you can gather information and how many resources you have to carry out the evaluation plan. Resources include: money, staff, and time. For example, you might want to conduct in-depth interviews but you don’t have enough staff or volunteers to do the work and not enough time to transcribe the interviews and finish the report before event reports are due or next year’s planning has to start. Create the kind of evaluation plan that fits with the time and resources at your disposal.

Work with Stakeholders
Look to allies and supporters to help with your planning and to maximize your resources. In return you can share the results of your evaluation with your partners. At Arts in the Parks, we want our final report to be as useful to our partners as it is for us.

There are also resources beyond your immediate circle of event supporters. The not-for-profit sector has taken a great deal of interest in evaluation to better understand community needs and the impact of community programs. The Ontario Not-for-Profit Network (ONN), which supports the non-profit sector’s vital role in the health and well-being of Ontario communities, provides evaluation resources and training for the sector.