One of the challenges that Pilotlight shares with its partner charities is the need to evaluate our work. Increasingly funders are asking charities to demonstrate their impact in terms of the difference they make to people’s lives, not just the numbers they work with.
For some in the sector, evaluation is an issue of public accountability. Martin Brookes from New Philanthropy Capital argues that expecting more information from charities about what they achieve will create a healthier sector; “Scrutiny, analysis and assessment of charities are not just desirable, they’re essential.”
The NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations) stresses the importance of tailoring the approach to the particular needs and resources of the organisation. Richard Piper, Head of Performance says; “We believe that external assessment can be helpful in certain situations, but what matters most is that organisations have the skills to assess themselves. Whoever does it, it’s essential that all forms of assessment are proportionate, meaningful, and outcomes-led – too often they are none of these.”Pilotlight’s ‘coaching not doing’ approach lends itself well to developing tailored evaluation approaches. When we work with partner charities to develop their own bespoke evaluation systems, the emphasis is on creating a tool which will help them in several practical ways. “Evaluation is a key tool in improving services and motivating staff, as well as communications and fundraising” says Dan Ritman, Evaluation Manager “Pilotlight helps charities to identify their outcomes, and develop systems to measure them appropriate to the resources they have available.”
Evaluation has always been a key part of the Pilotlight approach, and Pilotlight London recently rose to the challenge itself by publishing an evaluation report looking at the results of its relationship with 32 partner charities. 94% reported improvements in areas such as organisational infrastructure, capacity and impact. We found that Pilotlights charities are experiencing a growth in turnover of 22% a year compared to the national average of 2.7%.
For some of our charities like the Cotswold Council for Voluntary Services the impact has been even greater. They have seen their income increase by over 90% since they started working with Pilotlight.