Stage 4: Celebrate & Reflect

4 Stages to Creating a Successful Program

Congratulations! You’ve successfully implemented your program. Now is the time to reflect and evaluate. You can use many methods to evaluate your program, but the best approach depends on the questions you want to answer. At its core, Evaluation⁽¹⁾:

Helps you and your team learn
Demonstrates accountability to your funders
Allows you to showcase your successes!

Follow the steps below to help you celebrate & reflect on your program!

A) Decide What to Measure

When building evaluation plans, it’s critical to determine what you want and need to learn. An easy place to start is by determining if and to what extent you were able to meet your program objectives. For each objective, identify an indicator that will help you measure the success level. Think about indicators in terms of success. How will you be able to show⁽²⁾:

Program outputs
Participation
Participant satisfaction
Changes in behaviour
System changes
Improvements to community-level indicators (i.e. rate of food insecurity)

Percentages
Frequency of action or observable characteristic
Numbers related to participation, or other observable characteristics
Averages

Check out this resource for more examples of community-level indicators:

Community ToolBox Community-Level Indicators: Some Examples ⁽³⁾

Example – Suppose your program aimed to increase participant fruit and vegetable consumption. In that case, you might use the number of fruit and vegetable servings participants consume each week as an indicator of success.

B) Determine Your Evaluation Questions

Types of Evaluation Questions

Now that you have determined your indicators, it’s time to create your evaluation questions. Generally speaking, most program evaluations will include process and outcome questions. The type of community program and program stakeholders will help determine how many and what kinds of process and outcome evaluation questions are needed. There are two types evaluation questions⁽²⁾:

Measures and assesses the planning and implementation of your program.

Process evaluation questions consider:

How satisfied are the participants with the program outputs?
To what extent did the target audience play a role in planning, implementation or evaluation?

Measures how well and to what extent you reached your goal. Outcome evaluations consider:

How well did you meet your objectives?
What impact did your program have on the participants?
What impact did it have on the community?

Types of Stakeholders

Each stakeholder group needs different information and gains different benefits from evaluation. Read below for general considerations and differences between various stakeholders⁽⁴⁾.

Want to understand the success of both program planning and implementation as well as the overall impact:

How did we do?
What can we do better?
What needs to be changed?
How can we share our impact?

Want to understand the level of success and provide feedback for future improvements:

Did the program have an effect?
Identify the program elements that worked and which didn’t.
Future opportunities to expand or reimagine the program to better serve the community

Users of the evaluation information (i.e. funders, researchers or other communities) want to understand the program’s success and impact:

Was the program worth the initial investment?
Is the program worth investing in again?
How can others replicate the program?
Does the program add evidence to promising practices?

Things to Avoid When Gathering Information

When creating your evaluation questions, it’s crucial to consider what you can reasonably do with the information you collect. While gathering as much information as possible is tempting, the more critical factor is what you will and can do with that information. Make sure to avoid asking for:

Personal or identifying information not related to the program or necessary to complete your evaluation (i.e. asking for a person’s annual income for a running program).
Feedback on program changes you can’t deliver or change (i.e. Asking participants what they would prefer to pay for a program when you cannot change its cost).

Other program evaluation mistakes to avoid include⁽⁵⁾:

Creating leading questions to elicit a preferred response
Asking more than one question within a question
Using wording that is vague, hard to understand or full of jargon
Not tailoring language or the evaluation method to the participant demographic

C) Choosing an Evaluation Method

When choosing an evaluation method, it is important to select a method that best fits both:

The evaluation questions
The evaluation audience

Ensure that the method(s) you choose are appropriate to gather high-quality data in a way that makes it as easy as possible for the participants.

Surveys
Interviews
Focus Groups
Self-reports
Observations
Community-level indicators of impact (i.e. Rate of community sport participation)

Check out the Alberta Healthy Community Approach Evaluation Plan Template⁽⁶⁾ from Healthier Together to help guide and inspire your evaluation and reflection process!

Example – If your program focuses on older adults, over-the-phone interviews might be more accessible and lead to better data collection than an online survey.

D) Collect your Data

Determine the timeframe that you will be collecting information from participants⁽⁷⁾.

Will feedback be collected on an ongoing basis?
Will feedback be gathered at the end of the program?
How much time will participants have to provide their input?

Tips for Collecting Data:

Use the following tips to help you collect data / feedback.

Check if any gaps or misunderstandings occur (i.e. the wording of a question confuses participants).

Find ways to add, store and backup the feedback to a computer (i.e. excel, google sheets, etc.).

Be ready to adapt or change the methods you are collecting feedback for the best quality and quantity of results possible.

E) Analyze & Share

Once you’ve collected your feedback, analyze the information to find patterns, determine results and identify areas for improvement. Refer back to your indicators and objectives, and analyze the input to determine⁽²⁾:

Program outputs
Participation
Participant satisfaction
Changes in behaviour
System changes
Improvements to community-level indicators (i.e. rate of food insecurity)

After analysis, be ready to share your results! Create an evaluation report, an annual report or an infographic. Make the results stand out.

After analysis, be ready to share your results of the program with the following groups:

Program participants
The broader community
Municipal leaders
Previous and potential funders
Program staff

Begin the Celebration

Celebrating the successes and accomplishments of your program is an essential part of a community program and critical to building sustainability within it⁽⁸⁾.

Sharing evaluation results

Hosting a wrap-up party or event

Giving awards to outstanding staff members or volunteers

Writing or publishing an article about an exceptional staff member or community volunteer

And more!

Creates a positive example for the community
Provides an occasion to bring together community leaders and funders to highlight community issues and explain how your program helps to solve them
Fosters buy-in from the community; they see their work, skills, and additions are valued and appreciated.
Prevents feelings of burnout from staff and volunteers
Accentuates the need for ongoing work with the community

Key Considerations

Celebrations don’t only have to occur at the end of a program. Honouring and thanking the staff and community volunteers frequently helps to keep people engaged and invested in your goals and missions!

For an extra splash, consider involving local media to help bring more recognition to your champions and increase your cause’s attention and awareness⁽⁸⁾.

Next Steps

4 Stages to Creating a Successful Program

stage 1: Check-In

Stage 2: Prioritize & Plan

Stage 3: Take Action

Stage 4: Celebrate & Reflect

Continue Exploring Programs

Programs – Home

Alberta Health Services; Healthier Together. [Internet]. Alberta Healthy Communities Approach. 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://albertahealthycommunities.healthiertogether.ca/building-healthy-communities/alberta-healthy-communities-approach/#step-3-block
Community Toolbox. [Internet]. Section 1. Measuring Success: Evaluating Comprehensive Community Initiatives. 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-initiatives/measure-success/main
Community Toolbox. [Internet]. Section 10. Community-Level Indicators: Some Examples; 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/evaluate/evaluate-community-initiatives/examples-of-community-level-indicators/main
Community Toolbox. [Internet]. Evaluating the Initiative. 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from:https://ctb.ku.edu/en/evaluating-initiative
University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension. Avoid These Common Mistakes in Your Program Evaluation. [report on internet]. The University; 2021c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://fyi.extension.wisc.edu/programdevelopment/files/2021/12/AvoidTheseCommonMistakes.pdf
Alberta Health Services: Healthier Together. [Internet]. Evaluation Plan Template; 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://albertahealthycommunities.healthiertogether.ca/media/uploads/2021%20AHCA%20GUIDE%20and%20Appendices/ahca_guide_appendix_t.pdf
Yellowhead Tribal Council. Easy Evaluation for Community Health Programs: 7 Steps to Community Health Program Evaluation. [report on internet]. The Council; 2015 [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiN0KCDusL6AhX1MDQIHX-PDAYQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fyellowheadtribalcouncil.ca%2Fdocuments%2F8%2FEasy_Evaluation_for_Community_Health_Programs_-_March_2015_final_version.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0PGr2Fn-4BGs8Sd9MQnrLC
Community Toolbox. [Internet]. Section 6. Honoring Community Champions; 2022c [cited 2022 October 22]. Available from: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/maintain/reward-accomplishments/honor-community-champions/main

Stage 4: Celebrate & Reflect