Race Equality Foundation - Research

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Promoting Quality: developing monitoring and evaluation in black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations

Background

The REU in partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has identified the importance of the care and support delivered to black and minority ethnic older people by black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations. It is important that organisations should be clear and specific about what it is that they do well and why. It is also important to have an early warning system when things are not going well. A well designed, effective monitoring and evaluation system goes a long way to achieving this and gives an organisation more control over its own destiny. In addition such a system can produce the kind of information that is required by funding agencies while demonstrating the kind of management competence that inspires confidence.

What we did

REU worked with six black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations to design and develop, as well as extend and enhance their monitoring and evaluation systems. This involved the organisations regularly meeting as a 'development group' throughout the 15 month lifespan of the project. The group developed collective and individual strategies for building sustainable and effective monitoring and evaluation systems and for identifying good practice. Older people were members of the development group, and a link to other older people who use the services of the participating agencies.

Outputs

The project had three outputs:

• evidence of the effectiveness of services provided by black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations;
• tried and tested methodologies for monitoring and evaluation tailored to the specific needs of the participating organisations;

The findings from this work will be useful to other black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations as well as to those agencies in the statutory and voluntary sectors who work with black and minority ethnic older people.

A project report detailing the learning from the project will be available shortly.

You can find out more about the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

For further information about this work contact Jabeer Butt on 020 7619 6229 or email jabeer@racefound.org.uk