How to measure the impact of your energy awareness work - (In house course)
Don’t guess how well you are doing. Evaluate it! An utterly essential workshop
Your organization may spend a small fortune on energy awareness. But are your messages hitting the mark? How well are your projects doing?
Frankly, if you don’t begin to measure the effectiveness of what you do, you are missing a big trick. And as money gets tighter, this is going to become more and more vital.
I have wanted to put this session on for months now but have not been able to find the right speaker.
This is probably because it requires two quite special but very different skills.
One being an excellent knowledge of energy awareness and the other being a good understanding of working in the community.
Simple enough you would think.
But it wasn't. I phoned almost every national energy awareness organization in the UK.
Quiet frankly the response was astonishing for such an important area.
Most organizations were aware that it’s an important area, but by and large people seemed keen to get me off the phone.
It’s probably because they are all too busy concentrating on churning energy awareness stuff out in the first place. Few of us stop and think about what we are doing and why we do it.
It’s also because people often don’t know where to start. They put their hands up in the air and give up or look sheepishly away when the topic of measurement of energy awareness comes up.
Perhaps it just all seems too woolly and impossible to draw any firm conclusions.
So it wasn't easy but I finally tracked down the right person for the job, so we are putting on the session as quickly as possible.
I have chosen Kirsten Cook, Team Coordinator for the Changeworks Affordable Warmth Advice team.
Our introductory session won’t try to turn you into a fully fledged evaluation expert.
But it will enable you to start assessing the impact of your energy awareness work.
If you have you ever wondered about any of the following questions this hour is for you.
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Is it worthwhile to provide an energy advice service?
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What are the original aims and motivations for providing an advice service- Are these clear?
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How can we measure the effectiveness of our advice service in terms of meeting it’s original aims?
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What have been the benefits for individuals?
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What have been the wider impacts on the organization?
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Has the service been of good quality?
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How can we improve the service?
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Can we justify a continuation of the service?
Evaluating your energy awareness work in a logical and structured manner will take the guesswork out of what you are doing.
This is a difficult area but if you know what works and what doesn’t you can enjoy huge benefits. You can study what effect which communications or project has on the communities you work with.
In one hour we’ll cover:
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Why are you delivering a service, and what are the impacts of not delivering the service?
Impacts of cold damp homes on health and well being
Fabric of the building- condensation, burst pipes -
What exactly will we evaluate and why? Will it be…
Quantity, quality, depth, range of the service provided?
Benefits realized by service users?
Impacts/benefits of the service on the organization? -
How do we get started? Allocating resources
Planning
o Preparing
o Delivering -
What tools and methods will we use?
o Matching resources and methodology appropriately for the level and type of service given -
How can we measure something as elusive as behaviour change?
o Tools
o Limitations -
Having evaluated, what will you do with the information?
o Use the information to improve the service
o Help make the service more efficient
o Reach those missed- fill in the gaps.
Everything will be as free of jargon as possible.
You’ll see exactly how organizations are measuring the effectiveness of their energy awareness work – with examples. And you will get a chance to ask any question you want about measuring the impact of what you do.
We’ll do our best to make sure you don’t leave feeling swamped and that you have a practical plan of action.
Why not run this course in house? Email me at rod@rodlaird.co.uk or phone me on 01494 872 836.