From moment to movement: How to evaluate community events and have a long-term impact

Many of us working on events will be familiar with them being described as “catalysts” for wider change. Whilst this is very much the expectation of big events like the upcoming Olympics, we know that community organisers often point to an event as the start of something special. 

We first started working with The Jo Cox Foundation back in 2019, and we also had grants with Springboard, a Belfast-based organisation that regularly uses events to bring communities together, and WOW Foundation for its Women of the World Festivals. All three organisations were using the initial “moment” of an event to lead to a wider “movement” of community change. We wanted to unpick what was happening between the initial “moment” that made it more or less likely to lead to something beyond the event.  

This work is captured in inFocus Moment To Movement report, produced alongside an e-learning module for time-pressed event organisers to think through how to address some of the success factors and barriers in more detail. 

One of the recurrent questions was: how much was movement building in the control of the organisers themselves? Many of the barriers we identified boiled down to ownership and capacity: Who is responsible for acting on an event’s potential? 

The answer to that will vary from event to event, and needs to be completely pragmatic. Some of the best “catalytic potential” from events that we have seen has not required follow-up actions from the event organisers. They’ve created the conditions for new partnerships and surprising connections to form, and made it clear that others can pick up the baton if they’ve been inspired. In other cases, events are part of a longer-term vision with follow-up actions deliberately planned in advance. 

And what about evaluation? Above all, evaluation should be useful.   Either for instrumental purposes (ie. to help get more resources or secure the future of the event) or to help you learn.

We worked on a template and toolkit with University of the West of Scotland to guide you through proportionate evaluation. 

Here are five top tips on evaluating your event:

1. Think about what you want from evaluation as early as you can in the process, not at the end.
2. Finding out accurately who attended with some basic demographics like the first part of a postcode takes effort itself – decide how you will monitor attendance, what you want to know and why.  
3. Zero in on one or two survey questions that you really want to know the answer to, and think about simple ways to capture responses, such as postcards, or stickers to put up on boards on the way in and out. 
4. Use it as a chance to build your momentum – but only if you have the time to act on it. So if you ask people to provide details if they’re interested in getting more involved, assign someone to contact those people within a fortnight of the event while they’re at their most engaged.
5. Build in time for a proper debrief where you consider any data and evidence that you’ve collected (otherwise all those post-it notes and survey slips will languish forgotten in a tote bag somewhere!)