When it comes to evaluating the social impact of projects and programs – be it in a commercial company or in the non-profit sector – one wonders who the “judges” are that are there to determine which project is truly changing the world and which one is merely providing false hope for such change. And what kind of training do they have to receive, to be able to find answers to such difficult questions?
The field of evaluation of social projects and programs, in its various manifestations – in the form of expert or empirical review, direct evaluation of the results or impact evaluation based on identifying causal relationships or determining the project’s contribution to changing the beneficiaries’ lives, and many others – brings together a wide range of specialists. These specialists often have highly customized and very diverse diagnostic toolkits: from informal “heart-to-heart” conversations to complex econometric modeling methods. These specialists also come under different names: analysts, sociologists, psychologists, methodologists, independent consultants, and many others. What unites this complexly organized community is the idea of “project reflection”, that is, making judgments about the effectiveness, sustainability, and adequacy of a project or program, which makes it an important element in implementing project activities, one that can meaningfully improve them.
The first issue of the Positive Changes Journal in 2023 is devoted to the discussion of issues related to an important, interesting, and still nascent area of professional activity – evaluation of social projects and programs. We invited leading Russian and foreign experts to talk on a wide range of questions – about methods, types of evaluation, the impact of the profession itself, and whether project and program evaluation is even an actual area of professional activity.
It seems to us that evaluation is largely about awareness and responsibility. Even the flutter of a butterfly's wings can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world, let alone targeted activity. Evaluation is about being permanently included in the relations with people and nature and influencing it, up to the scale of the whole planet. And every person, more so a project team, can bring a positive change not only in the lives of the beneficiaries, but also in the lives of communities, the society and the entire world.