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Evaluation—the systematic investigation of the merit, worth, or significance of an effort—is an important step in providing feedback about the progress of the coalition. The point of evaluating a coalition is not to prove its success or failure, but to help members build upon its accomplishments and learn from its challenges and problems. This step is probably the most difficult for coalitions to tackle. Coalitions often avoid conducting an evaluation because the effort may be seen as not mandated, too expensive, or too time-consuming. Coalition members may also feel that they do not have the expertise or the resources to complete an evaluation or that they would be pressured to report only positive results.

Nevertheless, there are many benefits to conducting an evaluation of the coalition. For example, the findings can help to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses (e.g., overall goals, resources, communication, leadership, and inclusiveness) and pinpoint where the coalition can strategically focus its future efforts. Collecting this type of information can offer lessons that help not only your group but also other developing fall prevention coalitions in your state. Conducting an evaluation provides accountability to the community, grant makers, and others who provide funding or support. Further, by involving all coalition members in the evaluation process, members, and particularly those who have not been vocal, gain the opportunity to better understand and influence the coalition’s efforts.

Source: Modified from The Community Tool Box.

COALITION PARTNERSHIP EVALUATION VERSUS COALITION PROGRAM EVALUATION

Ideally, the focus of the evaluation should be two-fold: 1) to examine the effectiveness of the coalition as a sustainable partnership and 2) to assess the outcomes of the coalition’s activities. It may be confusing to separate the evaluation of the coalition from the evaluation of the coalition’s programs. They are interrelated—much of the success of the coalition depends upon the achievements of its programs or projects, and the programs will be much stronger if the coalition is operating successfully.

The evaluation of the coalition itself (rather than its programs or activities) examines the inner workings of the group—assessing attributes such as the mutuality of goals and priorities, how members communicate, how they collaborate, and how they make decisions about implementing the goals and objectives of the coalition. In contrast, program evaluation focuses on specific programs or activities that the coalition undertakes, e.g., the implementation of an evidence-based fall prevention program, holding a community fall prevention summit, or advocating for key legislation. Regardless of the type of activity the coalition implements, it is important at the outset to think about desired outcomes and processes for collecting data to measure those outcomes.

There is no one-size-fits all evaluation tool to apply to your coalition. What you ask depends upon the coalition or program goals and objectives and what you want to know. And what you want to know will be tempered by real world constraints such as:

• resources
• staff and their time
• capacity of coalition and/or program participants to take part in the evaluation
• availability of good measures
• capacity to analyze, interpret, and use results.

There are also other considerations in terms of the methods, tasks and responsibilities, and products:

• Who will complete the evaluations, and how often?
• Who will collect evaluation data?
• What types of data collection methods will you use? For example, will you use program records, observations, interviews, online or paper and pencil instruments, or some other method of data collection?
• Who will analyze the data?
• How much time, money, person-power, technical expertise, and equipment will be required?
• To whom will you report the results and in what format?

Source: Adapted from ARCH National Resource Center, Factsheet Number 14.

In this document, we provide resources to assess your coalition’s partnership. We will also provide suggestions for evaluating your coalition’s programs and activities.

During the next year, the Falls Free™ Coalition will be working with State Coalition Workgroup, State Territorial Injury Prevention Directors’ Association, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and other stakeholders and expert to develop evaluation criteria and processes specifically for fall prevention coalitions and the activities that they undertake.