Monitoring & Evaluation
Jennifer Zacharias's, JMF's Monitoring and Evaluation Worker role involves going out to visit organisations that have received a grant from JMF to see how things are going and discuss JMF's monitoring requirements. Jennifer shares information and advice, including useful websites and templates from around the sector, and helps organisations to monitor and evaluate what they do better and be more confident in talking about their activities and the impact that the activities have, because they have collected evidence to prove this.
If you would like to contact Jennifer please call 0151 707 6077 or e-mail 
WHY WE ASK FOR FEEDBACK ABOUT YOUR GRANT
John Moores Foundation is a local funder that gives out grants to some of the same organisations numerous times. Because of this our trustees use the monitoring information that we receive back at the end of each grant to inform future funding decisions.
Every applicant organisation has a paper file which applications, correspondence and monitoring information is stored in over time. Every time a new application is received; we review the applicant’s files and write a report about previous grants to go along with the current application to the trustees meeting.
The more information that a grantee feeds back to JMF about its year, what happened with the grant and the benefits, the more that we can tell the trustees.
In addition to this, setting up good monitoring and evaluation systems and being able to report back on your collected information empowers organisations to see if they are reaching internal targets and also highlight successes to other funders and stakeholders.
WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW
*How an organisation spent the grant; what was the itemised expenditure and did the organisation get any money towards it from another funder?
*What were your hopes and aims at the start of the grant? Who was the target beneficiary group? What problem / issue did you hope to address?
*What did you do over the year? What activities / support did you deliver? What did you do to address the problems / issues highlighted? If it is difficult to describe this, tell us what a typical week at your organisation looks like.
*The number and types of people that benefitted from what you did / delivered, and some indication of the level / frequency of your support.
*How did people benefit from your activities / support /work? You should report back directly on how you met the aims written in your application over the year. It is good to provide a mixture of output and outcome information.
*Case study material; a case study provides a useful way of giving a glimpse into a beneficiary’s life to see the difference that the organisation’s intervention has had on the person. It shows the journey that the person has been on and hopefully shows how the organisation has helped the person move to a better destination from where they started.
HOW CAN FEEDBACK INFORMATION BE REPORTED BACK TO JOHN MOORES FOUNDATION
*If you have received a ‘one off’ grant then it is usually only necessary to complete and return a self-evaluation form available from the office either when you have spent the grant or by an agreed date,
*If you received a ‘multi-year’ grant, it is necessary to provide slightly more information via a longer monitoring form available from the office, again by an agreed date usually before the next instalment of your grant is due or when you have spent the money,
*However, we do like creativity and therefore encourage people to feel free to cover the requested information in your own format and tell us about your successes over the year and the difference that you have made, without the constraints of a form.
