Does your money make a difference?: Good practice in monitoring and evaluation for funders (2nd edition)

By: 

Dr Beth Breeze

publications editor

By Jean Ellis and Milla Gregor

This good practice guide is aimed at philanthropic funders of all types, including those commissioning through contract arrangements or through grants. This second edition of the guide has been fully revised, with the addition of new material. It explores principles, provides practical examples and includes resources and tools to improve monitoring and evaluation, and ultimately the effectiveness of funding. According to the foreword, many funders grapple with questions about what information they should collect, what the jargon means, and how they can measure their contribution to social change. Funders have a crucial role to play in the field of monitoring and evaluation, ranging from their interaction with grantees to how they use and share learning more widely with other funders. This updated guide from CES challenges assumptions that funders should always try to measure everything and that social change can necessarily be pinned down by ever more complex monitoring and evaluation frameworks. At the same time it encourages funders to take the opportunity, not only to satisfy accountability requirements through proportionate monitoring and evaluation, but to add value to its funding of the work of the voluntary sector.

London: Charities Evaluation Services. December 2010. 47pp. Free to download here