Positive Outcomes: How To Design and Conduct Impact Assessments
A hands-on, field course on discovering what works in development designed specially for headquarters’ staff of donors and NGOs.

Donor and NGO staff are invited to participate in this workshop in Guatemala where they will combine theory with practice by working in the field designing and launching an impact assessment. You will develop a range of skills including how to facilitate participatory needs assessments, and how to map out a randomized control trial. Working side-by-side with villagers in the true context of a rural development project, you will experience firsthand the real-life needs of community members and the varied challenges faced by NGOs in monitoring and evaluation activities.

What You Will Do

• Learn how to increase the impact of projects that you fund or implement in developing nations.
• Practice participatory techniques for identifying community need and for building commitment and cooperation.
• Develop a foundational understanding of monitoring, evaluation and impact assessments.
• Discover the importance of impact evaluation design as an integral planning tool in the early stages of project design.
• Carefully develop the question (outcome) that the evaluation is being designed to answer.
• Design a randomized control trial for a community-centered project.
• Select two identical groups of community members: a treatment group and a control group.
• Improve project effectiveness by utilizing evidence-based best practices garnered from impact evaluations.

Positive Outcomes will allow you the opportunity to design and implement a community-centered impact evaluation from the ground up in an actual development context: a remote mountain village. We will work with community members assessing need and developing an outcome strategy. A project will be designed in conjunction with the impact evaluation plan based upon the outcomes identified. You will write the questionnaires and forms needed for monitoring and evaluation, and establish treatment and control groups in preparation for a randomized control trial. Participants will receive copies of the background materials, activities, handouts, and exercises.

This hands-on field experience will expand understanding for staff from headquarters about the complexity of rural development, in a way that will allow them to make better, mission-driven project decisions for increasing the impact of their programs. Workshop modules include:

1. Overview of community-centered rural development

2. Building trust, commitment and cooperation

3. Key components of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessments

4. Methods used in designing an M&E system

5. Indicators, data gathering, analysis techniques, and reporting

6. Developing M&E questionnaires and forms that provide means of verification

7. Designing a randomized control trial for a project based on community identified outcomes

8. Improving project effectiveness: the use of feedback and evidence-based activities garnered from impact evaluations

9. A review of the week’s work and assessing the impact and sustainability of the project

Participant Profile

This workshop was specially designed for the staff of donor and NGO organizations who would like to learn more about what their project investments are capable of accomplishing on the ground and experience what it is like to work hands-on in the field. The workshop is also open to all individuals with an interest in rural development. You need not have a strong background in M&E as the course will focus less on theory and more on incorporating a plan within a community. Similarly, you need not have field experience, just a willingness to participate, learn, and have a lot of fun. This is an opportunity to get out of your office and into the field to see what your implementing organizations do.

Time Frame and Venue

Duration of the workshop will be 8 days, excluding travel time to and from Guatemala. The training will alternate between paradise - a beautiful tropical farm - and a remote mountain village in southern Guatemala - both on the flanks of 11,600 ft. Volcan Atitlan. The workshop will be conducted in English; interpreters will be used for clear communication with the community members.

Costs

Participants are responsible for travel costs to and from Guatemala. The cost of the course is $1,800.00 which includes 9 nights’ accommodation, and 8 days ground transportation, meals (one exception) and training materials. See application for full details.

Further Information

The workshop will be facilitated by Tim Magee who has over 30 years experience in both working with nonprofits and leading training workshops.

The workshop syllabus can be downloaded here. 

For more information please contact the Center.