© Annabel Jackson Associates
Bevel: Evaluation capacity building programmes

The arts pioneered capacity building programmes. We have carried out almost all the evaluation of arts capacity building programmes in the UK, together with ongoing work in the United States:Text Box: Two evaluations of the English Stabilisation programme. Text Box: Two evaluations of the Scottish Advancement programme. Text Box: Evaluation of the Northern Irish Advancement programme. Text Box: Feasibility study into a stabilisation programme for the Arts Council of Wales. Text Box: Evaluation of the Advancement programme for The Cleveland Foundation, Ohio.

Ongoing advice to National Arts Strategies in Washington over six years including training on evaluation theory and practice; drafting of an on-line diagnostic tool to measure management performance in arts organisations; review of assessment procedures; review of performance measurement procedures; drafting of a diagnostic tool to measure the quality of governance in arts organisations; review of capacity building research; and advice on evaluation of educational programs.

We have produced a template of 100 capacity building objectives that allows us to generalize across different organizations and programmes.

We have also looked at capacity building outside the arts. For example:Text Box: We devised a diagnostic tool to measure the Community Fund’s capacity building work with black and ethnic minority voluntary groups.

Challenges for capacity building programmes are:Text Box: Participating organisations can be overwhelmed by the programme and unable to take full advantage of the opportunities that it presents. Text Box: Staff in participating organisations can be resistant to change. Text Box: Learning can be lost if key staff leave. Text Box: Participating organisations can become dependent on external advisors. Text Box: Participation can result in management systems being designed, but not implemented or integrated into operations. Text Box: Participating organisations can be unable to introduce improvements, such as long term planning, because their suppliers or partners are working on short term deadlines. Text Box: Changes introduced during capacity building programmes can be unsustainable once the programme ends. Text Box: Participants and their funders can have different expectations of future funding needs: funders might assume that capacity building programmes will decrease long term dependency on the funder; participants might assume that participation implies commitment to increase long term support. Text Box: Grant makers can have difficulty balancing their two roles as supporter and external assessor. Text Box: Organisations vary in their objectives and starting positions which can make evaluation of the programme as a whole difficult.

Text Box: This paper considers choices establishing a capacity building programme: Issues Paper for Capacity Building Programmes (Stabilisation).