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CORP COMM- UNIT 2- OBJ 3 (Reasons for evaluating communications: (1.…

- - - - Determine exactly what you plan to evaluate - not all. If strategy is comprehensive -
        ~identify components most critical for success, or
        ~something you are doing for 1st time or
        ~the area where your comm investment is the largest
        Key: Keep evaluation focused.
        
        STRATEGIC INITIATIVES / TACTICAL EFFORTS
    - - Central question for comm evaluation: what contribution toward program goals do we expect to gain from comm effort & how can we tell if we are making progress.
        -> Defining the goal of your comm initiatives will help you determine your evaluation approach
        -> What is a goal:
        
        Eind aim of comm effort
        
        Ideal outcome - the improvement your org strives to achieve/the change you want to achieve
        
        Long-term (5-10 years)
        
        Should reflect orgs mission & theory of change
        
        -> Think big picture
        -> If you are only evaluating a comm tactic eg blog- you still need long-term goal to put your comm & evaluation in context of orgs goals.
        
        2 Types of goals:
        POLICY GOALS=
        -in NGO usually positive change in government policy
        
        Awareness- 1st create awareness on issue & why it matters, this is groundwork for change
        
        Champions / supporters- strategic advocates for your issue
        
        Constituency building- building broad-based network of supporters who can work together
        
        Public will- this ensures your issue grow in prominance & action is taken. It gives issue a sense of urgency and makes change happen
        
        Policy change- most difficult, but ultimate goal. Needs previous steps to be achieved.
        
        BEHAVIOUR GOALS=
        -desired changes in way people act
        
        Awareness- make aware of issue & why it matters
        
        Salience- increasing weight of issue & creating a sense of urgency
        
        Attitude/Beliefs- now start working on changing way audience think of issue
        
        Self-efficacy- this refers to individual's belief about own capabilities eg diabetes
        
        Social norms- the way broad group believes in what is right behaviour eg smoking. Creates supportive environment for issue.
        
        Behavioural intention- the willingness/intention of people to do things differently.
        
        Behaviour change- when people behave differently- eg more exercise
        
        If raising awareness is your goal- determine why, what do you want to change with that awareness- that is then your goal.
    - - ~ Objectives are series of benchmarks (the intermediate steps) to reach your goal. They are:
        
        More specific than goals
        
        Have shorter time frame - 1 -2years
        
        Must be SMART- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Result-focused & Time-specific.
        
        How to pick an objective to evaluate:
        
        One can evaluate 1 objective at a time or multiple objectives at a time
        
        Your objective should directly address the program or institutional goal you are pursuing.
        
        Avoid objectives that focus solely on you and your team, like " develop a comm plan" or " launch a website"
        
        Always think in terms of your audience. Your objectives should be focused on the results you want to achieve with your audience on the way to your goal: advancing an issue with policymakers, changing people's attitudes, securing new funding streams from donors and so on.
    - - Most communications are ultimately trying to move an audience; therefore, getting feedback from the right source is crucial for a good evaluation.
        KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
        
        The audience will depend on the goal & objective
        
        Be specific when identifying your audience eg not young people or women. The narrower your audience is defined the more effective your evaluation will be.
    - - A baseline = the initial data that will serve as your starting point - is a must-have for a good evaluation.
        ->During implementation of your comm activities, you will be able to compare the baseline with new data gathered over time to assess progress, make course corrections & measure success.
        -> If you already have a baseline, this is a good time to revisit it and determine whether you need to broaden it to include more data, as may be the case if you have refined your objective or audiences. You will need to research whether this additional data is available.
        
        What if baseline was not established early? - it can still be done: look at goal & objectives to decide what info is needed to know if your comm is working.
        Think of ways to assess conditions prior to your program eg media coverage, past membership levels, web traffic, feedback on requests, opinion surveys, past reports of other companies etc.
    - - Now formulate questions to guide your evaluation
        
        The answers to these will reveal strengths & weaknesses in your choice of audiences, messages or tactics.
        
        The more questions, the more it will cost. As resources are limited, pick questions carefully. Those that will help determine if you are on track to reaching your objective & long-term goal.
        
        Opt for the less-is-more approach
        
        The kind of questions depends on how far you are with comm activities
        
        3 categories of questions to help tailor questions to stage of work.
        
        Early stages: Formative evaluation =
        
        When developing comm plan or when starting implementation
        
        Either when a relatively new field or an area in with little experience
        
        Trial and error may be included and/or an effort to establish a baseline assessment.
        
        An evaluation strategy here can help:
        -> determine some of the larger strategic directions of your activities and
        -> establish a series of milestones to help you reach your intermediate objective & long-term goal.
        
        Mid-course (monitoring) =
        If in mid-course in comm activities:
        
        a baseline has probably been established
        
        major players identified
        
        certain strategies and tactics invested in
        
        -> Evaluation questions here can help determine if on track to achieve objectives.
        -> Answers may lead to course corrections or revisiting original objectives.
        This is time to:
        
        Learn from what has been achieved so far
        
        separate what has worked & what has not
        
        further hone comm (refine or perfect)
        
        Advanced stages (monitoring & summative evaluation) =
        -> In advanced stages of comm effort, significant time has been spend on issue & positive, measurable steps made to reach goal.
        -> Unanticipated new challenges might have emerged.
        
        Audience might need to be expanded or new ones focused on
        
        New tactics, partners, adversaries or environmental changes might need to be considered.
        -> Evaluation here provides opportunity to:
        
        Assess what has been achieved so far & lessons learned
        
        Sharpen goals and lay out a path for the future.
    - - Drafting the measurements of progress toward your objective.
        
        Mark Milestones
        -Progress checkpoints from baseline to objective
        -Aim for at least 3 milestones per objective
        
        How to develop meaningful milestones:
        
        Brainstorm - what intermediate result would show progress from baseline to objective?
        
        Determine:
        
        Do they represent meaningful signs of progress?
        
        Are they results?
        
        Are they realistically measurable & how?
        
        -Milestones do not measure your activities (outputs) eg copies of publication
        ->> It measures preliminary achievements resulting from comm (outcome)- response from readers.
        
        Measuring milestones can be done quantitatively or qualitatively or a mixture of both
        
        Measures must be simple
        
        To determine what is working & what needs to be improved - qualitative is normally better
        
        Identify 1-3 measures per milestone- not more
      - How to develop sound measurements:
        
        Review milestone
        
        Ask how can progress be concretely measured (qualitative or quantitative)
        
        Review & eliminate
        
        Share & discuss with colleagues
        
        What if we are going in wrong direction?
        
        If data shows positive results- right track
        
        If milestone is not reached or data is not as expected
        -tactics or strategy might need to be adjusted
        -or milestone revisited
        
        Never lose track of objective
    - - Choose techniques to collect data to establish baseline & track milestone
        
        Techniques impact on evaluation costs
        
        If budget is low, choose less costly techniques to monitor several milestones at once.
        
        With some techniques professional evaluators may be needed or training of staff
        
        Evaluation Techniques:
        * Interview
        -to use at any stage of planning or implementation
        * Focus group
        -During planning, early implementation. Useful to test message / tactic or approach
        * Surveys (online or in person)
        -Multiple choice- useful for categorising & comparing data at a certain time or over period. Establishing baselines & monitoring progress.
        * Observation
        -During implementation
        * Quantitative data collection
        -Through websites & social networks, tracking hits.
        * Qualitative data analysis
        -Use data collected from web tracking or media monitoring services to conduct statistical analysis of possibility relationships between comm activities & external changes
        * Content analysis
        -to access quality & tone of media coverage, to review content of specific programming that reach your audience.
        Time-consuming & well-trained people to ensure objectivity & consistency
    - - Budget should be at least 5-7% of total budget of comm program- not less
        
        Consider the following:
        ~>travel & incidentals
        ~>editing, design production & dissemination costs
        ~>staff time
        ~>external consultant fees
        ~>costs of selected evaluation techniques