Impact and Evaluation Support for Community-Based Permaculture Projects
This project is offering support to several grassroots / community permaculture projects that want to improve how they evaluate their work and assess its impact.
We work with participating projects to identify areas that they want to work on, agree a pathway to do that work which will be supported by online materials and courses, 1-1 coaching, small group workshops and peer to peer learning through a community forum.
Understanding and assessing impact can help projects to improve their work, access more and better funding, and contribute to a collective evidence base of the impact of permaculture projects.
Previous work has shown that many community permaculture projects are aware that they should be measuring their impact and doing monitoring and evaluation but need help to get started. This project will help up to ten projects directly, and will use learnings to develop wider support in this area.
Team
Kate Swatridge, Aimee Fenech
Reporting Officer: Kate Swatridge
Area
Network Weaving, Prototyping, Next Steps Project
objectives 2023
2. Define eligibility criteria for client projects and selection process.
3. Create application form.
4. Draft Terms of Reference / Commitment for client projects to sign up to.
5. Communicate (advertise) the offer and invite applications.
6. Select first three client projects.
7. initial meeting with each project, identify their needs. Seek commitment from their leadership team.
8. Research, plan and co-design a pathway for them, ready to start early 2024.
9. Identify stacking opportunities between the three projects and their needs.
10. Integrate individual pathways into a single workplan for Group 8 project team.
11. Design & setup micro-grant system. Criteria & what can be claimed for, how to apply, consent process, funds disbursement (10 payments over 3 years).
12. Project management, admin and reporting.
OUTCOMEs 2023
This project has not started yet, beyond some initial project planning. This was planned and is due to capacity constraints of the team. Work will commence in earnest in September.
This project will offer bespoke support to several permaculture projects that are wanting to start or improve their evaluation and impact assessment. This could include 1-1 support, access to online courses, and group workshops. More details to follow. If you are working with a project that would be interested in this service, please contact us. There will be an application / selection process depending on level of interest. The service will be free to projects but will require a time and enthusiasm commitment!
objectives 2024
2. Start working with four to six new client projects by Sept 2024.
3. Continue working with existing clients throughout this year or until they feel ready to stop if sooner.
4. Document learning from engagements, and identify opportunities (for within CoLab and outside CoLab), in a project Learning Log, by Dec 2024 (To be continued in 2025).
5. Actively seek to integrate, learn from and cross-pollinate with other related initiatives, eg Permaculture Impact, Next Step MEL Research work etc. Ongoing.
6. Invite clients to apply for micro-grants, as and when needed.
7. Write up completed client engagements as case studies for perma.earth and Permaculture Impact websites.