Better Together evaluation planning for lottery application
Six charities supporting people with different rare conditions resulting in bone marrow failure have come together in the Better Together for Healthy Bone Marrow project. This initiative enables these micro-charities to pool their resources so they can deliver more support to their communities than they ever could alone.
Insley Consulting helped these small but mighty charities to plan their project evaluation when they applied for funding from The National Lottery Community Fund. Our support contributed to the partnership securing over half a million pounds of funding.
The Challenge
The partnership had a clear and articulated vision – and it sailed through the preliminary stages of the funding process.
However, the second-round application required more detailed thinking, including how the project would be monitored and evaluated.
Stevie Tyler, lead partner and Chief Executive of The Aplastic Anaemia Trust explains:
“We knew that with the funding and focused action, the impact of our work on our communities would be immense. We knew we would need additional support to demonstrate how we gather the evidence needed and monitor the project. For a project of this scale, we wanted to find an expert who understood our world to work with us and create a really strong impact offer.”
The Solution
Insley Consulting was commissioned to support the alliance to structure their thinking on the intended outcomes of the project and how they would be evaluated – to maximise its chances of a successful Stage Two application.
We worked with the partner charities, led by The Aplastic Anaemia Trust, to design a plan for how the project would be evaluated – including a Logic Model, Outcomes Framework and suggested methods to measure the difference the project would make to organisational and individual resilience.
Emma’s fundraising experience contributed to shaping the evaluation: We know the National Lottery Community Fund values partners learning from their projects, so we developed plans for a dashboard and feedback loop for the partner charities and community representatives to review evaluation data and consider if and how the project would need to change as a result of what we had learnt.
Throughout this process, we ensured that evaluation methods were proportionate to the capacity of these small charities.
“It was evidently clear that Emma understood the requirements of a successful Lottery funding bid and how our partnership could make practical changes to monitor our impact over time. She presented the results of our work together in a way that we could use immediately within the funding bid document. Her knowledge and expertise helped create the strongest bid we could.”
Stevie Tyler
Lead partner and Chief Executive of The Aplastic Anaemia Trust
The Result
- The partnership was successful in its bid – the National Lottery Community Fund awarded the Better Together project £579,707 over three years. This means a more secure future for these seven micro-charities and the communities they serve.
- The Better Together partners have a practical, relevant and robust Outcomes Framework and Plan to guide their monitoring and evaluation.
Insley Consulting is now the learning partner for the Better Together project – providing expert and independent evaluation annually to track, monitor and measure the outcomes of the funded project. After a successful first phase, the partnership is currently looking at applying for continuation funding.
The bid was lauded by The National Lottery Community Fund as a strong example of how partnership funding can be successful.
“We were delighted to secure the National Lottery Community funding and I am sure that it was at least partly because of the evaluation plan we developed and how well it showed our priorities and goals. We know that, by working with Emma, all the partners will have access to tools relevant to us and our progress.”
Stevie Tyler, lead partner for the Better Together for Healthy Marrow alliance
Learn more about the Better Together for Healthy Bone Marrow partnership here and book a call with Emma if you’d like to discuss how we can help you plan how your project will be evaluated.