Evaluation Exchange

A partnership project between UCL & the voluntary & community sectors

The Evaluation Exchange project brings together UCL researchers and postgraduate students with voluntary and community sector groups to help them solve an evaluation issue. It allows researchers and postgraduate students to use their research and evaluation skills in real life settings, and the community and voluntary groups or organisations to increase their capacity and evaluate their work.

Evaluation is a massively important tool for this sector, it allows organisations to understand the true impact of their work, findings can then inform future projects, and crucially use the information to then show as evidence of impact when applying for future funding.

I spent time with community organisations Wac Arts, and Subco Trust to understand how the project had impacted their crucial work, speaking with Subco’s Chief Executive Taskin Saleem and Kat Dale, the Head of Learning and Participation at Wac Arts . Subco Trust provides culturally and linguistically appropriate services for vulnerable Asian elders and carers in Newham, whilst Wac Arts provides high quality arts training for young people aged 5-26 years.

The Evaluation Exchange programme part of the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, and is led by Ruth Unstead-Joss and Dr Gemma Moore, and runs in partnership with Compost London and Voluntary Action Camden.