Taking the hassle out of Monitoring & Evaluation…………..
The problem: For as long as has been is grant aid, community, voluntary and social economy organisations have had a requirement to provide monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting on all their participants, programmes/services, activities, training and outputs to substantiate their grants. These reports whether qualitative and quantitative, can be difficult to collate, monitor and score. Some groups find this task laborious and arduous to complete. There does not seem to be any one agreed approach to this task and there is quite often too many disparities exist between the various funding bodies. It is also the case that these funding bodies’ non-financial requirements change from year to year. While there are several financial software packages in the market to help organizations monitor their budgets, there are limited tools for allowing groups to monitor the 'non-financial' aspects of their work. With the pressure to run management reports, fill in timesheets, co-ordinate staff diaries, evaluate your work - then it amounts to a lot of time behind the desk.
The solution: Cúnamh ICT, a social economy enterprise from Derry has developed a very unique database called eMonitoring© which does exactly what the title says, “Takes the hassle out of monitoring & evaluation”. It has been piloted with ten Community & Voluntary groups over the past 2 years - who are engaged in a variety of activities and who have multiple reporting requirements. “
“Cunamh ICT is an excellent example of a EU Peace funded organisation that has taken the initiative to develop an innovative product that will benefit other projects in the collection of EU monitoring data.” Adrian McNamee, SEPUB Director of the Peace and Interreg Programmes
eMonitoring© takes a technology-based approach to cataloguing and monitoring a groups work, thus freeing up more time for actual delivery of programmes and services. It gives you a platform for multiple office functions and provides funding bodies with the confidence that their grant aid packages are being put to their proper use. It allows you to record thousands of hard and soft indicators on your users and activities and produces customised reports in minutes. It is flexible, easy to use and requires little maintenance.
We are constantly reminded by funding bodies and the statutory and governmental departments of the need for effective monitoring and evaluation. The DSD referred to this need their report, 'Setting standards, improving performance' Best Practice in Finance and Governance in the Community and Voluntary Sector”. http://www.dsdni.gov.uk/finance_and_governance_for_vcu.pdf
eMonitoring© gives you the flexibility of setting up and measuring your own strategic or specific aims & objectives whether these are organisational or programme based, to setup your own evaluation questions and provides a section to record equal opportunities data.
New, and still in development is ‘Soft Monitoring’. In essence the ability to record & monitor ‘emotive feedback’ by the participants or groups taking part in your activities. It is these soft outcomes that are seen by many in the sector as the real required evaluation outcomes.
So what you have here is a tool that will create a paperless environment, put all your contacts in one place and generally make all those ‘less’ enjoyable aspects of your work that little bit easier. Through the use of the eMonitoring database, present conservative estimates suggest savings to an organisation of up to £4,000 per year – based on time that would have otherwise required groups to complete these activities manually.
PS…..For those of you involved in Counseling, eMonitoring© has this element integrated this whole package, a real bonus!
For further information contact:
Peter McCafferty
Cúnamh ICT
171 Sunbeam Terrace
Bishop Street
Derry
BT48 6UJ
tel: 02871 308166
E-mail: peter@cunamh.org
