Reviews & Evaluations

It’s not only funders and regulators who commission external reviews and evaluations to assess performance, learn from experience and demonstrate the difference an organisation or a service is making; service-providing organisations do so too to help take an external view on progress against goals and to incorporate challenge points into their planning.

A good review brings benefit for all parties, ensuring that the key learning messages are captured and remembered.

Clients Approach Us To

  • Carry out an external review of the organisation.
  • Carry out an external ‘audit’ of performance for a funder or for internal use.
  • Help evaluate the effectiveness of a particular service.
  • Facilitate a series of operatonal learning events.
  • Assess Value for Money and propose efficiency savings or improved working methods.
  • Review performance at the request of a funder or regulator.

We have carried out many organisational reviews from the small charity to the large public sector agency. Sometimes, we are commissioned as a one-off event, possibly due to a concern, or as a matter of routine, such as government departments’ five-yearly reviews of Non-Departmental Public Body’s (NDPB) financial and management performance. Sometimes we are commissioned to act as an interface between a funded body and its funder, providing the funder with the intelligence it needs and the funded organisation with advice on learning and future direction.

We are able to draw upon a number of our branded tools to support our evaluation work, notably:

  • Our tried and tested external stakeholders’ survey.
  • A high-level focus group process to get under the surface of the issues.
  • For membership organisations, a valued membership survey-based methodology

See our Tools page for more details.

“A major funder suggests we have an external review to assess our impact and value for money”.

In brief we:

  • Reviewed key documents and performance data.
  • Observed a number of key meetings.
  • Worked with an internal steering group of board and senior staff.
  • Interviewed other key stakeholders.
  • Agreed a programme of change with the board and senior managers.
“We were very satisfied with the process, quality and results of the external evaluation of our European network conducted by Transform for the first time in 2012. Within a short time span they developed an in-depth understanding of our organisation and our members through targeted surveys and selected face-to-face interviews. The evaluation outcomes issued very useful insights and relevant recommendations for, among others, improving membership satisfaction and engagement.”

Anne Gaspard, Executive Director – EQUINET – the European Network of Equality Bodies, Belgium