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Oxfam Cymru and South Riverside Community Development Centre Skills for Life Project: Final evaluation report

June 1, 2018

The Skills for Life project was a one-year project focused on supporting predominantly Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) women in Cardiff to "build long-term, lasting outcomes [beyond] moving into entry-level work and beyond 'first jobs' (whilst recognising their value as stepping stones)". Skills for Life is a sister project of Future Skills, and run as part of Oxfam's UK Programme Women United. It was delivered by Oxfam Cymru in partnership with South Riverside Community Development Centre (SRCDC).The project also built on the success of the Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales project by providing Sustainable Livelihoods Approach support to participants and was funded through the Innovation Fund of the Welsh Government's Communities for Work programme and the European Social Fund.The external evaluation report presents findings from the independent evaluation undertaken by the Social Effectiveness Research Centre, and is authored by Dr Leon Quinn. It outlines the project's key achievements, outputs and outcomes derived from quantitative and qualitative data; highlights challenges; provides a costed value analysis; and concludes with recommendations for future work.

More than Grants: How Funders Can Support Grantee Effectiveness

December 14, 2017

Trusts and foundations are increasingly looking to become agents of social change themselves as well as funders of it—asking themselves whether providing more than direct services might make more of a difference. Two common ways that funders do this are through providing support to help organisations develop their capacity, and by using a funder's influence to advocate for change. Here we focus on the former, looking at organisational development support provided by funders from around the world—exploring the types of support given, the evidence for whether it works, and how funders can approach impact measurement.

More than Grants: How Funders Can Use Their Influence for Good

December 14, 2017

Trusts and foundations are increasingly looking to become agents of social change themselves as well as funders of it—asking themselves whether providing more than direct services might make more of a difference. Two common ways that funders do this are through providing support to help organisations develop their capacity, and by using a funder's influence to advocate for change. Here we focus on the latter, looking at influencing practices of funders from around the world—exploring the methods that these take, the evidence for whether it works and how funders can approach impact measurement.

Final Evaluation: Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales project

July 11, 2016

The Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales project was funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Unilever and Oxfam, and was delivered by nine local partner organisations in communities across Wales between 2012 and 2016. The project piloted the use of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach in working with different groups experiencing poverty and marginalisation and was able to demonstrate a social return on investment of £4.43 for every £1.The external evaluation report presents findings from the independent evaluation undertaken by Arad Research. It outlines the general achievements of the project over its lifetime, and provides detailed statistics relating to the project's outputs and outcomes, as well as extensive qualitative feedback from participants and project workers outlining its methods, successes, challenges and learning points, concluding with practice and policy recommendations arising from the project. An executive summary is also available.The value analysis report, authored by Dr Leon Quinn (Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator), assesses the project in respect to the amount of value it has generated, or will generate, as a result of the activities it pursued during its lifetime. 

Our Museum Special Initiative: An Evaluation

June 1, 2016

Our Museum: Communities and Museums as Active Partners was a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Special Initiative 2012 – 2016. The overall aim was to influence the museum and gallery sector to:* Place community needs, values and active collaboration at the core of museum and gallery work* Involve communities and individuals in decision-making processes* Ensure that museums and galleries play an effective role in developing community skills and the skills of staff in working with communitiesThis was to be done through facilitation of organisational change in specific museums and galleries already committed to active partnership with communities.Our Museum offered a collaborative learning process through which institutions and communities shared experiences and learned from each other as critical friends. Our Museum took place at a difficult and challenging time for both museums and their community partners. Financial austerity led to major cutbacks in public sector expenditure; a search for new business models; growing competition for funding; and organisational uncertainty and staff volatility. At the same time, the debate at the heart of Our Museum widened and intensified: what should the purpose of longestablished cultural institutions be in the 21st century; how do they maintain relevance and resonance in the contemporary world; how can they best serve their communities; can they, and should they, promote cultural democracy?

Evaluation of the Community Asset Transfer Programme: Stage 3 Interim evaluation, Final report

May 1, 2016

CMI was commissioned by the Big Lottery Fund to undertake a longitudinal evaluation of the Community Asset Transfer Programme. The evaluation accompanies the programme over eight years in order to capture what outcomes and impacts are achieved through the 16 funded projects. This is the third of four evaluation stages. This evaluation report is aimed at the wider Community Asset Transfer community in Wales where there has been strong interest in the Community Asset Transfer agenda in recent years. The 16 original CAT 1 projects are an important showcase for what can be achieved in different settings and using different approaches.

Even It Up: A Blueprint for Change

January 6, 2016

Oxfam's vision is of a world without poverty; Oxfam Cymru works with others to make this vision a reality here in Wales. But there is work to be done. Economic inequality and poverty blight this world and Wales is no exception, with women suffering the most. Meanwhile, climate change is playing havoc with the weather worldwide, destroying livelihoods, and the nation continues to undervalue its potential contribution to the refugee crisis.In Wales, the wealthiest 16% of people have as much wealth as everyone else put together, while rates of pay have remained low and unchanged for the past decade. Even it up: A Blueprint for Change - published Wednesday 13 January - sets out Oxfam Cymru's policy calls that will help the next Welsh Government to even it up for the people of Wales, and become a world-leading exemplar for other governments to emulate.

Final Evaluation: Sanctuary in Wales project

October 26, 2015

The Sanctuary in Wales Project delivered opportunities for women seeking sanctuary (asylum-seekers and refugees) in Wales between 2012 and 2015. Oxfam Cymru coordinated the three-year project in the four asylum dispersal areas of Wales, working in partnership with Oasis Cardiff in Cardiff, African Community Centre in Swansea, Displaced People in Action and Bethel Community Church in Newport and BAWSO in Wrexham. Across all areas, Oxfam worked with Business in the Community, who sourced and matched voluntary opportunities for women. The project partners in turn worked with a range of supporting organizations, employers and service providers in each of the four areas. The Sanctuary in Wales Project was funded by Big Lottery.This is a summary of the evaluation undertaken by Arad Research, and concludes with practice and policy recommendations arising from the project.

The AdvantAGE Programme in Wales: A summary of key themes and learning points from befriending projects

September 1, 2015

In response to a lack of evaluative evidence about befriending services for older people, the AdvantAGE grant holders identified the need to bring together monitoring information and evaluation evidence from their respective projects in a collective and strategic way to help inform policy and practice.This is the fourth and final iteration of this paper, the first of which was completed in July 2014. The aim of this final iteration is to take a more summative approach to answering the following research questions:1. How much have AdvantAGE befriending projects achieved? 2. How well have they delivered their services? 3. What difference have they made?

Evaluation of the Life Skills Project, Summary Report

June 1, 2015

Life Skills is a £14million project joint funded by the European Commission's Convergence programme and the European Commission's Regional Competitiveness and Employment programme and matched by the Big Lottery Fund. The project provided resources for the delivery of services throughout Wales that supported targeted groups of economically inactive or unemployed people to engage or re-engage with education, learning, volunteering and employment. It focused on the following participant groups: Care leavers; Carers and former carers; Economically inactive families; and Older people (50+). This paper focuses on the lessons learnt from the project.

The AdvantAGE Programme in Wales: A summary of key themes and learning points from advocacy projects

May 1, 2015

In response to a lack of evaluative evidence about advocacy for older people, the member organisations of AWAEN identified the need to bring together monitoring information and evaluation evidence from their projects in a collective and strategic way to help inform policy and practice.This is the fourth and final iteration of this paper, the first of which was completed in February 2013. The aim of this final iteration is to take a more summative approach to answering the following research questions:1. How much have AdvantAGE advocacy projects achieved? 2. How well have they delivered their services? 3. What difference have they made?

Evaluation of Getting Ahead: the Symud Ymlaen/Moving Forward project – Interim Report

December 15, 2014

The SY/MF project has been developed to target young care leavers and young people who have offended in Wales to enhance their chances of finding employment and accessing further learning or training. The project has been designed to reflect learning from other similar projects and take account of the complex range of needs often presented by young people who have offended and/or are in care – and who are rarely 'job ready'. It is to offer intensive, tailored support in the form of: pre-employability and basic skills training; a six month paid work placement for a minimum of 25 hours per week; and, mentor support. SY/MF is delivered through a consortium partnership led by homeless charity Llamau.This report presents the findings of an interim assessment of SY/MF during its first full year of operation, October 2013 to the end of September 2014. The interim evaluation largely focuses on understanding the processes put in place to deliver the project and whether services have been implemented as expected; it also begins to capture outcome information. A full evaluation will build on these findings and include an assessment of impact over the full project (please see Section 1 for full details of the evaluation approach and method).