Program Involvement Opportunities
Program planning and evaluation processes can provide many opportunities for program improvement with giving you the reliable information you need to do so for your clients. It can give data on if the program works and why it is or not. It also tells you what parts of the program are being effective and which ones need to be improved upon or even cut all together, or even whether this is the best way to utilize the resources that are being provided. Not only are evaluations in grant proposals required by funders but they score better as well with good evaluations and are more fundable by being able to cite a good evaluation beforehand (Newcomer, 1997). With good evaluations, it helps the organization to not only improve the program itself but to improve the services to the clients meeting the needs of the funders in order to attract more funding down the road in the future. The most important part is the latter with what it benefits to the clients who receive these benefits considering the outcomes that they get. This will make the direct service dollars more effective in the end utilizing the resources to the upmost ability that it can be. With a good evaluation comes much program staff time it takes to do so, but it improves their work lives as well to go along with the lives of the clients. Change can be looked at as bad or uncomfortable to do so, but if the way the things are done is not the best it could be, then improvements are needed to change all of that. It is worth it in the end if the resulting improvements are real with new information and better way of operating the program overall (Newcomer, 1997).
Newcomer, K. E. (1997). Using performance measurement to improve public and nonprofit programs. In K. E. Newcomer (Ed.), New directions for evaluation, (Vol. 75, pp. 5