After the end of the activities, the project enters its conclusive phase. The outputs of the project should be delivered and reports should be written for the donors and other interested stakeholders.
This is the moment for all the members of the organisation to gather again and discuss about the results of the project. Following this discussion, the project coordinator will write the final report for the donors. This report will give a narrative of the milestones of the project and it will discuss whether or not the project achieved its main goal. If the project failed to achieve its goal or if the project failed to produce one (or more) of the stated outcomes, it is of crucial importance to discuss why the project was unsuccessful (contingencies, underestimation of risks taken, organisation’s lack of control over the project etc).
To understand what went wrong will help you to write stronger projects in the future and it will also reassure the donors about your awareness; by explaining what went wrong you communicate to the donor that you are aware of the situation and that you will not do the same mistakes in the future.
As such, the end of the project is characterised by 2 main activities: evaluation and reporting.
Evaluation
Evaluation means to assess whether your project has fulfilled its aims or not. Evaluation is a useful tool for stakeholders who financially or technically supported the project. Evaluation is also important for the leading organisation to reflect upon what happened during the implementation of the project and to learn how to design better projects in the future.
Evaluation could be conducted once (at the end of the project) or several times (when a milestone is achieved or half way through the implementation of the project). The following sections will discuss what are the main methods used for evaluation and what typologies of evaluation exist. You will need to understand the following points to decide what methods and types of evaluation could be selected for your project proposal.
Methods used to perform Evaluation
- Review of Project Activities means that at the end of each activity, and by looking at your Gantt Chart, you should write a partial assessment of the development of this activity. You could include whether the activity was completed in time and whether the allocated budget was sufficient to complete the activity. If there was a delay, you should write what happened and how you managed to limit the negative impact of the events that delayed the project. If the budget was not sufficient, you should explain how you dealt with the situation and how it affected the project at large. At the end of the project, you will review and collate all the partial reviews to write a detailed final report.
- Interviews with Participants involves talking to each of the participants to assess their level of satisfaction, the impact of the project in their life, their commitment to the project and also to gather their ideas on how to develop the project further or how to design new future projects. Extracts from these interviews could be presented to the donors as a way to demonstrate your success or discuss your failure. You could decide to video-record and edit these interviews and to upload a short video on your website to disseminate the results of the project.
- Participant Observation entails attending trainings, workshops and all other activities to observe what the participants do, how they relate to each other, what they say, and how they interact with the group facilitators. This information will enable you to better understand what are the strengths and weaknesses of the project. For instance, you could realise that the selected facilitator is unable to attract and keep the attention of the young people present. In this case, you could further enquire into the participants’ level of satisfaction and, if they are not happy, you could discuss with the other members of the organisation what to do (for instance, to change the facilitator).
- Surveys and Questionnaires allow you to gather a dataset able to produce statistical information. For instance, you can render participants’ level of satisfaction or participants’ life improvements by drawing graphs and charts, which are visually easy to read and understand also for your final report to donors.
